Comments

SpaceLifeForm • September 3, 2021 4:49 PM

Insanity Down Under

Free smartphone? No sleep?

hxtps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/

Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules.

Returning travelers quarantining at home will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”

SpaceLifeForm • September 3, 2021 5:06 PM

Windows Insanity

hxtps://www.ctrl.blog/entry/windows11-empty-taskbar.html

However, that doesn’t answer why the Windows shell was so poorly architected in the first place. How come that it would stop responding just because of one failed cloud service? It’s not a crucial cloud service either, and the computer became useless because of a single JSON blob with an advertisement.

[Backdoors R US]

tiny • September 3, 2021 5:12 PM

@SpaceLifeForm,

that sounds ridiculous (not denying that it is true, though).

Another thing I feel is kind of hard to believe but I should probably accept it: the professor on my MSc program (in an European university) told us that the NSA was involved in building the currently used encryption technologies and can decrypt encrypted communication if they want to.

SpaceLifeForm • September 3, 2021 5:41 PM

@ tiny

Take every course your prof teaches.

Ask your prof how network traffic can leak one bit at a time.

JonKnowsNothing • September 3, 2021 5:44 PM

@SpaceLifeForm, Clive, All

re: Tracking in AU (and elsewhere)

Scott from Marketing has promised the Aussies that IF they all “open up and say AH” and swallow COVID whole, that he will protect them by having a First Class Track N Trace System to protect them plus rolling out massive vaccine campaigns.

Quarantine hotels are not working all that well, and Scott has declined to build a special facility at the international hubs that will contain C19 and its Soon To Be Relatives. Some states are building their own quarantine hotels in desperation.

While home quarantine has been commonly requested to reduce the extra expense of quarantine+travel+quarantine thus reducing Elitist Travel Income Streams, it is also pretty well documented that where ever “home is”, depends on what “is is”. The brew at the local pub might qualify as home, shopping how can that hurt, I just needed some new kit, had to find something fun to do besides Walking the Dog. (1)

Scott’s about saving money for other projects and that well worn tracking ankle bracelet clearly has technical problems precluding it’s use because it lacks accuracy about the location of the wearer. Works only for non-quarantine tracking.

===

1) If you are beyond Elitist you already get Quarantine Free Travel unless you are a under-elite USA media person traveling to AU and spouting off in Social Media to your many admirers that Aussie Quarantine is a Joke and How you are going Out N About and the Aussies will never know Jack. Well Jack got kicked right out of the continent.

(road rash y or n)

Winter • September 4, 2021 1:08 AM

@SLF
“Free smartphone? No sleep?”

Not new, this was already used in other countries. Here are the instructions for Slovakia, but I also heard a similar procedure was used in Hungary:
ht tps://korona.gov.sk/en/smart-quarantine-self-isolation-as-an-alternative-to-institutional-quarantine/

The corresponding app for Hongkong is called StayHomeSafe.

The alternative would be a quarantine hotel, which is worse as you are then locked up in a prison.

Winter • September 4, 2021 6:22 AM

@jon
“Global prisons vary in their lack of amenities and dietary offerings but they almost always revolve around a very tiny space, slightly bigger than a dog crate, and stacked with a lot of other people in similar circumstances.”

Not over here.

The basic idea of a prison is that you have a room which you cannot leave, and it is not in your own house. Any torture, like done in prisons in the America’s and also elsewhere, is optional.

Clive Robinson • September 4, 2021 6:54 AM

@ Winter, JonKnowsNothing, SpaceLifeForm, MarkH, ALL,

which is worse as you are then locked up in a prison

You forgot to add “with others who could infect and kill you.”…

Which brings us onto the topic of the history of this pandemic and the likes of alledged experts in the eye of the media and on select committees.

We knew early on, with the first spread of the mildest and least infectious mutation people locked up that way on what became modern day “prison ships” / “floating petri dishes” of Cruise Ships became quickly and easily infected and many died. Much of the press reporting about the “Princess” etc is still on-line as is the way the passengers were treated, and the conditions they were kept in.

We knew that the infection was spreading way to easily to be from “fomites” or direct person to person contact (look back on this blog where we discussed it to death at the time and the conclusions that were reached, that have been shown to be correct, and the experts in the media now very occasionaly and very indirectly belatedly admit).

Likewise when in land based hotels used for quarantine the figures indicated cross infection was going on but not at such a high level as the ships. But again the argument was it must have been fomite transmission in transport from air ports… Whilst there might have been some cases that way, it was obviously not for others and infections were occuring at too high a rate to be fomites and direct contact with staff…

But we also need to look at the spread and death rates in “institutions” such as “care homes” unfortunately they were often so bad the “Official Government rules” in places like the UK got manipulated to exclude them from “official figures” so hiding further clues. Then there are actual prisons in Brasil, the US and many other places, where rapid infection spread has happened and inmate “unrest” unsuprisingly has happened, but media reporting was lower than you would expect.

But it was not just on this blog where people thought about it and called the things the alleged experts in the media were saying.

Many enginers and similar who had knowledge of ventilation indicated that “through the air” in such places was the most likely way… But then the alleged experts most often in the media at the time said no (think back to Head of the World Health Organisation and its Executive Director Dr Michael Ryan on live interview and that parachute comment, but it appears even he has wised up somewhat[1]).

The alleged experts on media kept saying “No” even when experts in the domains surrounding air movment etc published peer reviewed papers showing they alleged experts in the media were wrong, very wrong.

But there was a very early and major clue that was in most media. Much though we may not like to say it we can see from the design of the early Chinese “hospitals” that quarantine has to mean “kept” in significant “issolation” as well. Oddly it was about this time that it was all the “China Conspiracies” started comming out of the US and similar.

Why did all the deths etc happen?

Well even though the alledged world experts spent months saying it was not an “airborne” pathogen we now know that people can sneeze droplets atleast 26ft or potentially more. In poorly ventelated corridors or with common ventilation or staff you can be infected due to dropplets just floating there. Whilst this technically may not be “airborne” it’s certainly suspended and it can be as we know now for three hours or more, and the pathogen can remain infectious on surfaces for atleast nine hours[2].

Ask an average person if they think something that can remain in the air for the length of time it takes a jet plane to fly ~3,000kM is “airborne or not?” You can probably guess what they are going to say. Then ask them about the redefinition of words used to speak to the media, and US legal authorities under oath. Some will remember a certain US Military commander and testimony about what some call “collect it all” and that building in Bluffdale. So realistically is it any surprise that people have become significantly distrustful of “experts” that speak in the media thus appear “politically connected / dependent”? With even actual “experts” saying bad things about the Seniors at the World Health Organisation, not once or twice but on an almost continuous basis, similarly about the US CDC and more recently the FDA and European Medicines Agency…

As Dr Mike Ryan has belatedly pointed out 18months or more late is,

“The logic of more people being infected is better, is, I think, logic that has proven it’s moral emptiness and epidemiological stupidity previously.”

And with regards the “don’t frighten the horses”, “Happy clappy attitudes” many have exhibited. He further said,

“The idea that everyone is protected and it’s ‘kum-ba-ya’ and it can go back to normal, is a very dangerous assumption,”

If you go back 18months or so on this blog, we’ve been saying the same thing as well as evaluating Open Source evidence in an open fashion (OSint process). So far the comments on this blog by a handfull of people have proved to be consistantly right whilst those alledged experts in the media and in Government committees, how do I put it politely “not so much”…

But are these alleged experts appearing in the media and on these committees actuall experts?

Well, in a way too narrow definition perhaps. But when you see an alleged expert really really muck up explaining “exponential growth” then compleatly ignore “exponential decay” something a lot of High School and undergraduates have no difficulty explaining. Then you know something is wrong…

But it raises a serious question, most of these alledged experts in the media and certainly many on advisory boards are “eminent experts”. That is recognised in a very narrow domain of knowledge for their “seniority in academia/research”, but are they actually “experts” outside of their office/lab in the broader “real world sense”?

Probably no more so than the average person who pays someone else to fix the every day things around them… Can they even “hang wallpaper”, “Change a fuse”, “do simple plumbing, electrics, heating, ventilation…” or a host of other things ordinary people who can not aford to pay someone else have learned to do? Most probably not.

In short outside of a narrow mainly irrelevant knowledge domain these alledged “experts” in the media and on committees are probably actually less expert than many in the knowledge domains where it’s needed.

But have a think for a moment, do you actually really expect someone who is an expert in the genetics of viral mutations to actually know anything about hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, balistics, orbital mechanics, thus be able to have indepth knowledge of the likes of air movment in the real world especially in constrained environments such as modern buildings and transportation system ventilation?

The moral is “pick your alledged experts with care, not by eminence”, or more pracmatically “test and verify” the Security Mantra (also the mantra of “intrinsic safety” and “fail safe” design).

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/moral-emptiness-epidemiological-stupidity-condemns-uk-covid/

[2] That is we realy should say,

Space, face, hands

As the priority order to consider for peoples safety.

Sut Vachz • September 4, 2021 1:01 PM

@Clive

Re: dreamin’ in the USA

Actually, I’d be interested to know if there is any place now where your characterization does not apply.

any moose • September 4, 2021 2:19 PM

Now that Tesla’s so-called self-driving software (Autopilot) has been involved in twelve accidents with emergency vehicles, DOT and FCC must immediately order Tesla to disable all of its autonomous software until it is reliable and safe, which won’t be true for many years to come. Muskipooh’s tweet that a new version of Full Self-Driving will be distributed to beta-testers at midnight on Friday, September 10, is a clear sign he’s hopelessly infatuated with “drive fast and break things.” The libertarian horse manure about allowing Tesla, Uber, et al., to use other drivers and pedestrians as guinea pigs must cease.

annoyed_reader • September 4, 2021 2:58 PM

@Clive

But it raises a serious question, most of these alledged experts in the media and certainly many on advisory boards are “eminent experts”. That is recognised in a very narrow domain of knowledge for their “seniority in academia/research”, but are they actually “experts” outside of their office/lab in the broader “real world sense”?

And are you ? Do you have some magical skill that gives you the ability to understand and apply the knowledge of experts in other fields, a skill that those ‘alleged experts’ (AE) don’t have ? You don’t even have their ‘narrow’ domain expertise.

What are you actually accusing those AE of ?

  1. Incompetence
    A. In their expert field (unlikely),
    B. Inability to understand anything else,
    C. Inability to operate under media pressure, or
  2. Malice, having ulterior motives, or
  3. Both,

and can you please supply any arguments why we should believe that your opinions carry any more credibility than theirs ?

Sumadelet • September 4, 2021 3:38 PM

@any moose

Now that Tesla’s so-called self-driving software (Autopilot) has been involved in twelve accidents with emergency vehicles, DOT and FCC must immediately order Tesla to disable all of its autonomous software until it is reliable and safe, which won’t be true for many years to come.

Over the same timescale, how many accidents with emergency vehicles were ones involved with with human-driven vehicles? How do the two statistics compare?

Obviously, the objective is for self-driving vehicles to have no accidents: but if, under the same conditions, they have fewer accidents than vehicles driven by humans, what do you do then?

JonKnowsNothing • September 4, 2021 4:18 PM

@Clive, Winter, All

re: But… the reality in the US is actually worse than that. Because some people pay nothing whilst others

There is direct pay and indirect pay. We have individual payments and corporate payments. The everlasting story is: who pays for what and how much.

There are claims made of “they pay nothing” however, if you break out all the possible places where fees and taxes are levied, an exchange happens many times along the list.

The distribution may or may not be equitable, but everything has a cost and someone, somewhere pays for it.

Everyone’s Income, is Someone else’s Out Go.

“There is no escaping the nature of the universe. It is that nature that has again brought you to me.

Where some see coincidence, I see consequence.

Where others see chance, I see cost.”

  The Merovingian, The Matrix Revolutions

SpaceLifeForm • September 4, 2021 5:09 PM

@ Anders

Local, large, very good hospital now requires surgical mask. Cloth not acceptable even if you are a visitor. They provide the surgical mask.

echo • September 4, 2021 5:20 PM

In recent topics I’ve posted two links from Independent SAGE and France 24 which give a good baseline of where things are at. The contributers are experts. I’m talking professors and PhDs and people intimately involved on a day by day basis with the science and roll-out of solutions within public policy realities while maintaining an advocacy and public communication role. I doubt anyone other than me has watched these videos all the way through. I suggest you do. I also posted a link to “The Citizens” – a group with founding members who have broke stories Bruce himself commented on and who are currently focused on governance issues and FOI, and who also contributed to creating Independent SAGE but that post went walkies. I think one link later got through but nobody paid much attention to it.

Yes I did pass on to someone who is now a member of Independent SAGE information on aerosol spreading as it was published in real time and yes they did promote this and yes more research has been done in this sphere and yes aerosol spreading has been confirmed as a thing and yes this has influenced the shape of some policy decisions and yes advocacy on this element along with other elements continues.

As for supply chain issues while accurate observations have been made this is not the whole picture. Nor is this blog the sole source of wisdom on this topic. While some have been busy talking German manufacturers have been busy re-engineering their supply chains.

I’m simply not reading walls of self aggrandising ego text. I skipped right past.

any moose • September 4, 2021 5:21 PM

@Sumadelet

According to injuryfactsDOTnscDOTorgSLASHmotor-vehicleSLASHroad-usersSLASHemergency-vehicles, there were 170 fatalities in the US in 2019 involving emergency vehicles. According to Statista, there were 276 million vehicles on US roads in 2019. According to tesladeathsDOTcom, there have been 207 deaths in all with 10 directly attributed to Autopilot. One website reported that there are 730,000 Teslas on the road. Do the math. Teslas are over-represented in terms of accidents involving emergency vehicles. QED.

Clive Robinson • September 4, 2021 5:58 PM

@ annoyed_reader,

What are you actually accusing those AE of ?

Being human[1], and being provably wrong repeatedly (as UN WHO Executive Director Dr Mike Ryan recent quote shows).

Did you actually read my post?

Something tells me not realy, how about the bit that says,

“Probably no more so than the average person who pays someone else to fix the every day things around them…”

Or,

“But have a think for a moment, do you actually really expect someone who is an expert in the genetics of viral mutations to actually know anything about hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, balistics, orbital mechanics, thus be able to have indepth knowledge of the likes of air movment in the real world especially in constrained environments such as modern buildings and transportation system ventilation?”

Hence,

“The moral is “pick your alledged experts with care, not by eminence”, or more pracmatically “test and verify” the Security Mantra (also the mantra of “intrinsic safety” and “fail safe” design).”

Either you did not, or you have decided once again to be a “hostile complainer” not a “contributer”.

Oh look at your list… entry 3 gives the game away and shows without doubt it is both biased and incompleate,

Opps, bing bing not a “contribution” test failed.

But lets “verify”.

You’ve said,

and can you please supply any arguments why we should believe that your opinions carry any more credibility than theirs ?

That’s easy to test and verify and could have been done over the past year and a half or so.

Because they are already on this blog and have been for months. Did you miss the bit of my above comment that says,

“So far the comments on this blog by a handfull of people have proved to be consistantly right whilst those alledged experts in the media and in Government committees, how do I put it politely “not so much”…”

Go seek and you will find, quite a number.

However I and probably several others know you’ve tried on this silliness before, so I’ll just say “Google it and stop being lazy”.

But bing bing verified as not a “contribution” along with “test failed”, you are nailed as a “hostile complainer”. Oh and as normal not a very good one.

Speaking of your silliness,

You don’t even have their ‘narrow’ domain expertise.

Why should anyone believe your opinion?

After all you do nothing but complain and have not exhibited any contribution. So what makes you any different to “The rough trade in the peanut gallery” that are incapable and incompetent?

How about you do what you ask of others?

But I guess you won’t or more correctly cann’t… So back in your kennel with you, no doubt you will change the tag on your collar.

[1] There are quite a few old saws about humans and mistakes, I would have thought you would be cognizant of them, but I guess not.

Clive Robinson • September 4, 2021 6:51 PM

@ Anders,

Interesting link, especially

…they also saw a slight increase in physical distancing in public spaces, such as marketplaces. This finding indicates that mask-wearing doesn’t give a false sense of security that leads to risk-taking behaviors — a concern cited by the World Health Organization during the early days of the pandemic…”

I think we can say that finaly puts the nail in the UN WHO don’t do mask wearing argument the senior was putting out.

Oh interesting point, the surgical masks they are handing out many consider to be “single use” only. That’s actually not true, even though the manufacturers box might have a label stuck on it saying “single use”, all “approved” surgical masks are infact reusable, provided the mechanical integrity is still there and it’s physically clean.

If you dry the mask fully in sunshine between uses then any residual pathogens will be rendered non viable. Similarly you can when the mask is dry give it a misting with hydrogen peroxide solution which will render residual pathogens non viable, when it is dry again you can wear it as the hydrogen peroxide will have fully broken down.

There was research in the US done to verify this, not just with surgical masks but with many other masks. The US Gov was going to issue contracts for UV-C and Hydrogen Peroxide mask sterilisation systems when mask availability was critical, but mask supplies became readily available before the tendering process had compleated.

In the affluant West using three or four of these masks a day as “single use” is not a significant financial burden on most individuals. However in many non western countries it would be more than a significant burden, it would cost more than daily earnings.

Thus knowing how to properly re-use the surgical masks can make a significant difference in such poor areas, especially as more virulant mutations are turning up so frequently.

SpaceLifeForm • September 5, 2021 2:29 AM

@ ALL

Evidence now exists that one or more troll-tool actors have been ID-ed and blocked.

Clive Robinson • September 5, 2021 4:39 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

… one or more troll-tool actors have been ID-ed and blocked.

But at what collateral cost?

Let us say that “M’thinks there will be future fall out” from it. Fingers crossed I’m wrong.

In theory, and on a classroom white board, and some journalistic commentary blocking a user looks easy.

But as you and I know it’s not just “attribution” that is hard. In practice whilst attribution is very hard and easy to get wrong against “a thoughtful mind” there are other much harder issues where “technical solutions” such as blocking

“Are not lasting solutions but technical and other debt.”

As I remark from time to time you can not use technical solutions for non technical problems CCTV being perhaps the one most see.

The main problem is technical solutions are almost always non-evolving, where as the likes of social issues are continuously evolving. Especially where the technical solution is in reality,

“An inconvenience that can be worked around by a thoughtful mind”.

In fact with the likes of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, it is usually the “technical solution” from an earlier problem that is now being used against a central service to block access to the service by others. From that point things will escalate technically unless the attack stops for some reason. That reason is almost always non-technical in nature, even when it might look like that to a defender.

Gardeners fight nature to bend it to their will in all sorts of ways so much so that “tending the garden” is used as a euphemism for somebody going off to “plot and scheme” their next battle.

One thing gardeners have to deal with is weeds, “unless nipped in the bud” they can become extraordinarily tenacious, so much so that a “scorched earth” policy gets considered then finally used. Obviously then it is not only the weeds that can not grow there, but the desired plants as well.

Escalation of technical solutions often becomes a partial or full scorched earth result. In fact some directing mind attackers aim to force the defender into such a policy.

I guess we will have to wait and see what happens with time.

echo • September 5, 2021 7:23 AM

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-mass-infection-children-vaccine-b1913707.html

The group behind the letter to Mr Williamson called for vaccines to be offered “to all 12 to 15-year-olds, with rollout in schools to maximise access and uptake”.

They also called for rules on face coverings for secondary school students and staff in classrooms and for bubbles to be reinstated, as well as more investment in building ventilation.

The signatories included scientists from UK, US, Germany, India and Norway.

Members of Independent Sage, the Parent SafeEdForAll group and the National Education Union were among those who added their names to the list.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is yet to give a recommendation on extending the jabs rollout to all healthy 12 to 15-year-olds.

Politics isn’t just about what you know but who you know and the wheel keeps turning. It’s also about coalitions. A range of opinion off people of all ability levels with a spread of expertise. It’s not about picking feuds with job titles or beating up squirrels and some of those people you may have derison for may actually have PhD’s and Masters or none conventional work histories or community links you’re not paying attention to.

I deleted about 70% of my draft comment. A lot of it is was very useful but if nobody is going to pay attention there’s no point putting it in there.

Anders • September 5, 2021 7:36 AM

@SpaceLifeForm

“Evidence now exists that one or more troll-tool actors have been ID-ed and blocked.”

Probably me – my mask research link got deleted 😉

echo • September 5, 2021 9:54 AM

https://theconversation.com/introducing-ozsage-a-source-of-practical-expert-advice-for-how-to-reopen-australia-from-covid-safely-166943

How we reopen is as important as when

It’s the big gap in the national approach. And it needs to be filled. Now.

That is what OzSAGE aims to do. OzSAGE is an additional expert resource for governments and business, health, education, community and non-government agencies in Australia.

Inspired by the UK Independent SAGE (Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), OzSAGE members have expertise in public health, infectious diseases, epidemiology, Aboriginal health, engineering, the built environment, occupational hygiene, behavioural and social science, multicultural engagement, communications, law, data science, public policy and economics.

Yet another example of how experts, activists, and the general public joining together as a coalition can make a difference.

Sut Vachz • September 5, 2021 11:28 AM

@ to whom it may concern

The sequence of the surface of events doesn’t always tell much about what is going on, it is always important to “follow the money”.

- • September 5, 2021 4:48 PM

@SLF:

Something else to join the dots on,

hxtps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/michigan-neighborhood-told-to-evacuate-indefinitely-after-industrial-fuel-leak/ar-AAO89Vk?li=BBnbcA1

Sumadelet • September 5, 2021 5:01 PM

@any moose

According to injuryfactsDOTnscDOTorgSLASHmotor-vehicleSLASHroad-usersSLASHemergency-vehicles, there were 170 fatalities in the US in 2019 involving emergency vehicles. According to Statista, there were 276 million vehicles on US roads in 2019. According to tesladeathsDOTcom, there have been 207 deaths in all with 10 directly attributed to Autopilot. One website reported that there are 730,000 Teslas on the road. Do the math. Teslas are over-represented in terms of accidents involving emergency vehicles. QED.

From your figures and references:

In 2019 there were 4 (four) deaths in the USA where Autopilot was involved (tesladeathsDOTcom). An emergency vehicle was involved in 1 (one) fatal accident.

Your statistics say 170 fatalities involving emergency vehicles in 2019 in the USA, of which 169 must, therefore, have been human driven.

Taking your (unsourced) figures for Teslas on the road (730,000) (I assume this is for the year 2019, in the USA), that means we require 730,000 Teslas for one fatal accident with an emergency vehicle, per year.

Non-Tesla cars on the road are 276 million less 730,000 Teslas, which is 275,270,000
Non-Tesla fatal accidents involving an emergency vehicle is 169, which means we need 275,270,000 / 169 = 1,628,816 non-Tesla vehicles for one fatal accident with an emergency vehicle, per year. Looking bad for Tesla here, but…

From Statista, the number of passenger cars involved in fatal crashes in the United States in 2019 was 19,582

If we go back to tesladeathsDOTcom, we see 34 separate fatal accidents in the USA in 2019[1].

Taking your figures for Teslas on the road (730,000) (I assume this is for the year 2019, in the USA)

Fatal accident rate per Tesla is 34 / 730,000 = 0.000047

Of the total cars on the road (276 million), 730,000 are Teslas.
So the total non-Tesla cars is 276,000,000 – 730,000 = 275,270,000
Of the total fatal accidents (19,582) 34 were Tesla
So the total non-Tesla accidents is 19,582 – 34 = 19,548

It follows that the total non-Tesla fatal accident rate is:

19,548 / 275,270,000 = 0.000071

This is greater than the Tesla rate by 50%

In other words, doing the math on your figures appears to show Teslas to be safer in general, but twice as likely to be involved in a fatal accident involving an emergency vehicle.[2]

Do you want to change any of your figures?

Sumadelet

[1] Some of the accidents could conceivably not be the Tesla’s fault. e.g.
Police SUV strikes Tesla
Kia rear ends Tesla
Tire strikes Tesla
Wrong way driver strikes Tesla
Wrong way driver strikes Tesla, Tesla burns
Honda rear ends Tesla
BMW strikes Tesla

[2] I’m reluctant to leap to a (statistical) conclusion when the crash figures are so small, and especially when the set of all accidents is divided up by vehicle marque. It’s easy to fall into the trap of declaring green jelly beans cause acne. If you have large numbers of categories such that the number of items in each category is small, it is highly likely that the numbers in some categories will deviate significantly from the average.

Curious • September 6, 2021 6:18 AM

Unsure if this malware news has been mentioned any time before on this blog.
I just read about this in some online magazine, malware infesting in the GPU claiming to rely on Windows and Open CL 2.0 and higher.

So this is supposedly about someone having solicited for selling malware and apparently somebody buying it, and nobody know what it was or something like that. Supposedly happened in August this year between 8. Aug and 25. Aug. Apparently a proof of concept was shown.

The source article is this below:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cybercriminal-sells-tool-to-hide-malware-in-amd-nvidia-gpus/

Article points out a warning from 2013 about keylogging potential of “such” a thing.
“In 2013, researchers the at Institute of Computer Science – Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH) in Greece and at Columbia University in New York showed that GPUs can host the operation of a keylogger and store the captured keystrokes in its memory space (…).”

JonKnowsNothing • September 6, 2021 8:57 AM

@Clive, Winter, SpaceLifeForm, All

Among the breadcrumbs …

There are a lot of new vaccines in the works. Many of them are showing good results and a good number are targeted at the newer Ds+Ys+Qs.

One of the techniques being used are: cVLP

cVLP is a “virus like particle” that is a molecule designed to resemble a virus but contains no genetic material.

A good number of the vaccines under development can be used as either main jabs or booster jabs. They are often designed to trigger “persistent” antibodies.

Some are at various stages of trials with expected eta EOY 2021.

Clive Robinson • September 6, 2021 10:38 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing, SpaceLifeForm, Winter, ALL,

A good number of the vaccines under development can be used as either main jabs or booster jabs. They are often designed to trigger “persistent” antibodies.

Breakthrough though is a concern with a new WHO VOI called Mu. Apparently it has not just one or two changes, some of which are thought from earlier VOCs to be avoident.

Winter • September 6, 2021 11:35 AM

@Clive, JonKnowsNothing, SpaceLifeForm
Latest on the expected future developments

ht tps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03792-w

Sounds reasonable.

Clive Robinson • September 6, 2021 1:06 PM

@ Winter,

Sounds reasonable.

Not to my eye.

I don’t agree with the first paragraph.

The reason,

1) The rate of infection exceeds the rate of vaccination.

This would eventually resolve it’s self if it were not for,

2) Reinfection and breakthrough.

The reinfection with new variants has been low apart from South America. Breakthrough is known to happen regularly now even with those who have had two jabs. The reason is

3) New varients.

Whilst these happen randomly they actually come up at a rate proportional to the prevalence / people actually infected. So you can not predict where and when they are going to happen, only that the will on an increasing basis.

What makes the new varient rate look like it might be slowing down is the relative infectiousness. A varient with higher infection ability will tend to win out over lower infection ability hence Delta is ripping it’s way through many places, so fast that the realisation is that herd immunity is not going to happen even where vaccines are freely available for the asking.

So there is a problem…

The solution needs to be multi-phase. And eradication by vaccination is a way way later stage than we are at.

As I keep saying “area quarantine” is the phase we should be in and probably need to stay in for upto the next half decade. This will involve major social changes. Way more so than accepting people wearing surgical masks as normal (as they do already in the Fare East).

Australia is demonstrating very clearly why effective area quarantine is a necesity. It also shows why the social change is necessary and why speeding up vaccination is so important not just in the West but the whole world. New Zealand also demonstrates why effective area quarantine is so important, all their community spread has come from those that consider themselves entitled to go where they want, when they want and that realy has to stop.

Australia apparently will not build proper quarantine facilities thus the hotels are where their out breaks are coming from.

Right back at the begining @SpaceLifeForm called it right with “stop the planes” well stoping global travel is one of those “social changes” we are going to have to have, no ifs, buts, or maybes. People need to accept a couple of things,

A, Travel is a luxury not a necessity.
B, It is a luxuary mankind can nolonger afford.

Contrary to what many think “trade” does not require humans to travel into other countries, it is time it was stopped.

Goods can cross borders quite easily without human intervention, it is what those cargo containers are actually all about. A little further “standardisation” on shipping containers such as boxes and pallets to enable automatic / non-human movment of goods across borders and into appropriate quarantine and sanitization would close boarders to all but the hardiest of pathogens.

As for services that cross borders they tend to come in three flavours, those that are pure information transfer, those that require some physical intervention and those that are effectively physical only. The latter is actually quite rare and tends to be in specialised industries. As with “office work” moving to “work from home” most other services could be done remotely so not require border crossing.

There’s quite a bit more I could say both good and not so good about the rest of the paper, especially if it was set in a sufficiently later phase (where most of it would be correct). But I think we are upto half a decade away from that.

The phase we should be in is “stop mutations” which can only happen if you stop infection spreading. Thus rob them of hosts before they cause more than a handfull of infections.

Unfortunately it will require significant social changes.

However if we look back at China, they mote or less did the right thing once the danger was realised. Admittedly the “solitary confinement” style quarantine / hospitals and “dog catcher” style round ups may shock us, but they worked, even before vaccination, proving the point that vaccination was not the only way out.

Winter • September 6, 2021 1:29 PM

@Clive
“I don’t agree with the first paragraph”

If I want to know about security, I come to you, if I want to know about epidemiology, I go to an epidemiologist. When virologists said they would have a vaccine before the end of 2020, I believed them, and not a security expert. Which proved to be right.

When they now give predictions for the future of the crisis, I tend to believe them more than honorable amateurs, myself included.

JonKnowsNothing • September 6, 2021 2:39 PM

@Clive, MarkH, SpaceLifeForm, All (Winter if interested)

During massive road rash events, I did attempt to leave breadcrumbs to some research on the future. I am not that keen on getting put back on The List as I’ve been successful for several posts.

Among the breadcrumbs are:

  • Humans have a finite set of antibodies
  • SARS-CoV-2 attacks the ACE2 receptors
  • Humans have specific antibodies that respond to those attacks.

Our dilemma is:
  If COVID-19 mutates to avoid the antibodies humans have what outcomes can we expect.

On the mutation front it is not just Mu it’s AY1 AY2 AY3* … AY12 and more. These are all Delta offspring. There are more Delta offspring, my last count is @18. Each are their own unique variants. Official counts are rolling up these long family chains (A,Qs) which muddles the view some.

In the phylogene trees, variants with Like Mutations are grouped together. If there is any significant difference it gets a new moniker. For large reporting systems designed for public consumption it’s much easier to use Delta as an umbrella term, but what’s happening on the ground is anything but.

Knowing your area may hosting 18 versions of Delta might give some pause when considering what’s happening. AY3 and AY3.1 are a good point to pause on. They won’t be the last points on the tree.

(road rash Y or N. Hopefully N)

name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons • September 6, 2021 2:40 PM

@Clive

Back in the 1990’s I was looking around to do a PhD based around the notion of widely data-distributed and geo-placed DBs that were in effect multiple part DB’s of the whole spaning a country or the globe.

If I remember correctly, late 90’s, Sun Microsystems had an experimental architecture around a global fiber infrastructure technology, it was called something like world wide fiber something, something. Just want to reach out and seed a couple of breadcrumbs. It loosely meets your expectations respecting a globally distributed database.

name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons • September 6, 2021 3:02 PM

The Problem with SARS-nCoV-2 and Public Health

Epidemiologists, Experts Evade Empirical Evidence Evidently Enhancing Efficacy
(Early scientific reporting by Chinese scientists directly was ignored or marginalized)

ANALYSIS AND SOURCE MECHANISMS FOR TRANSMISSION AND CONTAMINATION
Any pandemic study and response system requires a significant testing regiment, and it would need a 4 phase study methodology (2 phases in vitro, 2 in stasis post exposure/forensic). I have been arguing this point for some time, it is the only way to conclude efficacy and would provide much in the way of getting at causation and contaminate vectors. I have yet to hear of a what is termed a Gold viral source. I am not an epidemiologist, virologist, or public health official. But, I have followed this from the start and have made it a mission to acquaint myself with the scholarly work that is available.

I say this as the zoonotic and environmental containment and viral lifecycle will represent significant challenges to public health for some time. Without a rational response that focuses on public health as a priority (we seen various strategic, operational, and logistical responses), the ham or salami sandwich will continue to have a bad bit of cheese stuck on the bread. What most people haven’t realized that today, in a world with a global supply chain, a highly mobile and large population, any classic definition of “Pandemic” might be better set in the framework of a Global Endemic. There are many other first order conditions in play but I will not go into that here. It is just to say that for example, the number and rate of exposure and load that a human experiences in life is far more varied and larger in scope than seen historically. As so many things that individuals are exposed to, the number of them at any one time simultaneously, and the potential for outliers in the environment is orders of magnitude greater than any time in the past. Good examples of a more controlled response and a suppression of the contagion can be seen in Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, New Zealand, and even Japan and is demonstrative of multiple factors that can informative. Natural borders help isolate the spread not just externally but internally when matched with effective containment strategies.

Given that a virus such as SARS-nCoV-2 can spin up to 10,000 generations in a year, and gene shedding (what is called the tail) where protein chains of a RNA virus are seemingly random across a portion of the protein chain (SARS-nCoV-2) is approximately 32K codons in size. Much of the virus encoding is duplicative or spare and it is not well understood as to mechanisms that RNA can be modified in a way that is predictable. And the mechanism that a virus manages to express RNA mutation via feedback or other mechanism. Phylogenetic mappings available today demonstrate the migration and genetic expressions of this virus unlike any other time in history. What I am witnessing is akin to the early days of amateur astronomy. Dedicated individuals with means, opportunity, and will worked separately in their own observatories collecting and analyzing specific features and catalogs of the day. It wasn’t until years later that ad-hoc collaborative groups of astronomers began integrating their studies and observations in line with other like-minded astronomers. This is later replicated in radio technology, HAM operators did much as earlier astronomers and formed their own collective community that distilled and defined much of radio technology and believe it or not, has been largely responsible for much of today’s infrastructure and industries and will likely continue into the future.

GETTING THE CORRECT EXPOSURE, GAMMA
Any study that suggests mRNA vaccine is the same as SARS-nCoV-2 base vaccines is suspect and treating them similarly is not a sign of a good study. The two types are distinct, viral body versus the RBD portion of the SARS-nCoV-2 are significant in that understanding the antigene longevity relative to the exposure is hard to measure. If you look at the history of vaccine regiments, dating back to the 18th century, vaccines do work as they provide a method to provide controlled exposure. The reason people suffer under acquisition of a contagion, a person receives viral loads from someone that overwhelms a natural response. Or, suffer from a condition or malady that would make an uncontrolled exposure responsive by a existing condition. Pneumonia is an example of a secondary infectious response. Must viruses are not the cause of death, it is the systems as a whole in response to a viral or bacteriological exposure that takes the lives of those infected.

Cytokine storm, the symptomatic response of the delayed ACE2 component of larger grouping of amino acid pairs the come in several forms (IL-1, IL-6), from bacterial infections, autoimmune failures, and from some diseases. For example, allergic response, the common cold, and in respiratory disease the histamines play a key role in binding infections. What is interesting is how willing people take fundamental virology and epidemiology so superficially. To my mind, the only way people in the U.S. are going to survive their stupidity, is to refuse it in the first place. I don’t know how many people are taking pandemic advice from people that are complete strangers, a dog on the internet, or their local militia leader. Me personally, I go to source materials. Who first documented the outbreak, often these studies avoid the pressure and popularity that so often skews research and reporting. By the time a viral outbreak has significant legs, the event could be called Andromeda Strain and a level 4 facility somewhere in Nevada, a failure in a containment vessel in the lab triggers a nuclear detonation to contain the outbreak, but that was before understanding energetic excitement of an interstellar foreign organic would likely increase the level of contamination by orders of magnitude.

The U.S. isn’t doing better as it doesn’t know any better. How many jesters and fools does it take to screw in a light bulb…

Wrong question; first pairing fools with jesters set both in the 16th century, and as we all might now, there were not light bulbs in the 16th century.

SpaceLifeForm • September 6, 2021 3:04 PM

@ –

Re: Michigan fuel spill

Something I find curious about this incident, is how did it get into the sanitary sewer system?

I would expect that if the storage was outside, it would end up in the storm sewer system.

Yes, in many places, they are linked. You know when they are linked when heavy flooding backs up into the sanitary sewer system, and you get flooded inside thru basement floor drains.

If they are linked, then the benzene vapor could jump the gap, but I would suspect one would barely notice unless the traps were dry.

There is something not clear about this incident.

MarkH • September 6, 2021 3:49 PM

@SpaceLifeForm:

We live in a leaky world. For a pertinent example, consider the enormous amount of methane leaked by petroleum infrastructure.

That petro-plumbing is probably more expensive, better engineered, and more thoroughly maintained than most sewerage systems …

I don’t know whether it’s still the case, but during my brief stint living in Manhattan in the 70s I heard that when utility crews were called out because water was seeping up through streets, they would occasionally find that the leaks were from old wooden water mains.

Even if sanitary and storm sewers are theoretically isolated, there may be leakage paths between them. But in most places, the need for such isolation only became apparent after wastewater treatment grew widespread less than 50 years ago. Any city or town with a system older than that, will not have isolation unless everything was redone (at great cost) since that time.

One path you might be forgetting about is created by vent stacks — every house has at least one. These go directly to the sanitary sewer — they’re necessarily on the “wrong side” of the traps. Even if there is no leakage path in the building and its connection to the sanitary system, benzene vapors can accumulate in the vent pipe until it is filled.

After that, because benzene vapor is heavier than air, it will flow downward from the top of the stack.

========================

Large fuel tanks are supposed to be set in lined “pits” (usually formed by built-up ring-dikes) sufficient to retain all of the liquid in case of tank failure.

When that works, it makes cleanup much more manageable, and greatly reduces contamination. What happened at the Ford plant, I don’t know.

- • September 6, 2021 5:18 PM

@SLF:

“There is something not clear about this incident.”

First of ask yourself a question, how much liquid fuel to make that much gas?

Then ask another question, noting the volume of gas, how long would it take for that amount of gas to go down a four or six inch vent?

Then ask if in that long time what the likelihood is that the gas would go unnoticed?

So which is more likely liquid got into the sewage system or gas some how floated around without being noticed and did?

My thinking is liquid is more likely than gas, if that is the case there are three possibilities,

1, By accident.
2, Inexperianced clean up crew made a mistake.
3, Done deliberately for some reason.

If it’s the latter if they still effectively existed you would expect the EPA to be sniffing around.

One thing that’s almost certain is Ford is not going to meet the full cost of sorting this out.

Nor is it likely if it was just an accident that things will change sufficiently to stop similar happening again…

Living close to a factory may make travel easier as a worker there, but as Flint has shown it’s realy not a good idea to live in single industry areas. You want to live in the same place those who get payed out of Government taxes live, or in urban areas in moderate proximity to multiple industries such that you get offsetting if one industry goes into decline.

SpaceLifeForm • September 6, 2021 5:57 PM

@ -, MarkH

As I said, there is something not clear about this incident.

Was it really a gasoline leak, or was it really a liquid benzene leak?

Why did Ford block their sanitary drains?

Maybe the leak really was a liquid benzene leak inside a building that drained into their floor drains which likely feed into sanitary sewer system?

If it was really a leak of 1 to 3 thousand gallons of gasoline, it SHOULD have went into storm sewer system, because it should have been OUTSIDE of a building, for safety reasons.

If it went into storm sewer system, you fix the leak, and flush the system with lots of water. Lots.

Something is not making sense.

I suspect it really was a liquid benzene spill.

SpaceLifeForm • September 6, 2021 7:10 PM

@ -, MarkH

The electrons spin fast in benzene

They can coverup the picture inside.

This link is fresh.

hxtps://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2021/09/06/crews-going-door-to-door-in-flat-rock-urging-evacuations-after-chemical-spill/

You may want to check this link if you are young.

hxtps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhbqIJZ8wCM

Clive Robinson • September 6, 2021 7:26 PM

@ Winter,

When virologists said they would have a vaccine before the end of 2020, I believed them, and not a security expert.

Well go back and read what was written on this blog… Technically those who said “NO” are correct, and those who said “YES” as you did are wrong.

Why?

Well the “parameters we were talking within” were for “Full Approval” that is the laid down and regulated by FDA etc rules[1].

What you got was “emergancy approval” which sliced alot of time off of the testing and trials. I had concerns about the fact the trials that were run, where not going to show up defects esspecially long term ones and you and I had a fairly heated discussion. Well there have been some short term defects with blood clots amongst other things, so my concerns were valid.

So the upshot we did not have a fully approved vaccine out of the FDA untill a couple of weeks ago,

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine

Not sure what the EDA is upto as I’ve not bothered looking.

As for,

if I want to know about epidemiology, I go to an epidemiologist.

But which one? There are so many and they disagree with each other…

Where would you be if you followed those Professors etc that signed “The Great Barrington Declaration”?

I look at what factual evidence is available, if it’s peer reviwed or not and a few other “tells”. I then apply logic and reason and come up with the equivalent of an inteligence report without “Fear or Favour”.

So far I’ve been reasonably correct, and you can go back and check my reasoning as I usually give it.

The thing is if you scroll-up and look at my current reasoning you will see it’s based on what we actually have factual evidence for.

So the real question I guess is are you saying the factual evidence is wrong?

[1] If you want to argue if a viable candidate for a vaccine was in existance, well yes there had been a number of those going throug lab testing whilst you and I along with others were still discussing “when” it would be a “fully approved” vaccine. As you know you can make a traditional vaccine very very quickly if you want to[2]. Crudely, you first capture and isolate the pathogen. Then there are two basic routes you can take which are fairly fast. Where the time and money is taken up is in lab testing then trials oh and setting up manufacturing etc.

[2] Apparently the ancient Chinese used to do it in seconds… Basically they took puss from an infected persons boils dipped a needle in it and used that to push a small amount of fully viable pathogen into your body…

MarkH • September 6, 2021 8:34 PM

@Clive:

Fair’s fair. I won’t burn up time searching, but I distinctly remember comments from you expressing pessimism as to whether an effective vaccine against Covid-19 could ever be developed, and suggesting that if it were possible, the likely time frame would be several years.

Those of us who brazenly make predictions here (and that includes myself) have no right of complaint when our feet are held to the flames in consequence.

Winter • September 7, 2021 1:55 AM

@Clive
“Well the “parameters we were talking within” were for “Full Approval” that is the laid down and regulated by FDA etc rules[1].”

Sorry, but both the virologists and the politicians at the time were talking about applying the vaccine. Full Approval is irrelevant when the country is burning and people are dying by the thousands.

The predictions were about putting needles in arms. If you were arguing something else, that was a miscommunication.

The point remains, it is worthwhile to listen to those with expertise and experience. They often are simply right. That is a reason I read your comments 😉

Summer • September 7, 2021 2:59 AM

@clive:

Not sure what the EDA (sic) is upto as I’ve not bothered looking.

Or you are selecting your ‘factual evidence’ to fit your preconceptions.

As far as I remember the EMA (European Medicine Agency) approvals are ‘full’ and not ’emergency’ ones. They just expedited the procedure by allowing phases to overlap.

Clive Robinson • September 7, 2021 4:23 AM

@ MarkH,

but I distinctly remember comments from you expressing pessimism as to whether an effective vaccine against Covid-19 could ever be developed, and suggesting that if it were possible, the likely time frame would be several years.

I expressed pessimism about mRNA technology making it out of the lab and into the world.

Because at that point after 30years of talking mRNA up and throwing lots of money at it the universities and drugs companies were still trying to make it work and out of the lab, and had so far failed. The odds did not look at all good.

If you want to belabor the point, –and even you have admitted you do,– then I’ll point out as a usefull vaccine for a global pandemic mRNA technology is still not there now, and in effect it’s still not yet made it outside of lab conditions (though there have been small improvments).

Because at the time you had to keep it in -70 Celsius tempratures which was “specialised lab” only tempratures.

If you remember they talked for quite some time about “chill chains” where even liquid nitrogen was not enough. That is the technology required, ment specialised centers had to be set up and people had to travel long distances to get to a medical point. So totaly usless outside of certain limited First World environments.

As far as I’m aware the mRNA vaccines are still not suitable for many second world countries let alone third. Which means if all we had was mRNA, then outside of First World environments, and as a global traveling population, we would never “vaccinate our way out”. Because the rest of the world would be a “disease reservoir” and SARS-2 would by default be endemic.

Thankfully there are other vaccine options but an average American might not be aware of that. Because the FDA won’t give emmergancy use to them. I guess we will have to wait and see if they ever give “full approval” to other vaccines, but if “past behaviour is any indicator of future behaviour”…

However some have indicated that both the FDA and EDA have basically been doing “protectionism” for certain big phama interests[1]. A European Watchdog discovered there was a lot of “dark money” being put out to cause low vaccine uptake and promote “bad news” against other vaccines…

If you know anything about the history of the tobacco industry and similarly certain parts of the food –ie corn to sugar– industry, this will not surprise you in the slightest.

[1] That’s kind of been hidden away behind much more social media engaging conspiracy theories about mass murdering Americans or Bill Gates putting chips in everyone… Further not helped by the likes of Rupert Murdoch’s “Sky News” putting out biased stories to create scares about blood clots and similar, it happens at about the same rate with mRNA vaccines as well, and way way less than with disease, something that was known befor Sky News started the scares…

Clive Robinson • September 7, 2021 5:40 AM

@ Winter,

Sorry, but both the virologists and the politicians at the time were talking about applying the vaccine.

“WE” –you were involved– were talking about time scales based on full approval at the time. When “emergancy approval” was not being talked about, nor were other time saving measures.

I have some knowledge about manufacturing in several industries which is why I mentioned about the issue of the serial nature of how the ordinary approvals to market place process worked. Importantly how setting up production after trials would take quite a while based on previous knowb times to set up a new plant train staff and get it bedded in.

Which brings up,

Full Approval is irrelevant when the country is burning and people are dying by the thousands.

It was because of this and the serial issue that one drug company took a major leap in the dark, and fiscal risk. They went out on a limb and started manufacturing before any kind of approvals.

As for Governments they were very late to the party of how to speed things up in most cases and some are still not there…

Oh and as for the problems of setting up manufacturing they happened, you might remember why there was that EU “stealing our vaccines” issue. Several manufacturing upgrades in Europe failed and the drugs companies indicated there were going to be “low poroduction” because of it and they had contractual obligations with those that had unlike the EU ordered in a timely fashion. The EU commission made some noise about not alowing export, and a fairly serious “bun fight” started that got to the “stone throwing” stage, before things quietend down.

But if you remember the first shot fired in that war was India anouncing India first on their drugs production. The rest of the world had let India become the major producer of drugs in the world, which possibly was why there were several incidents of “mine”. There was the US and it’s “War Materials/production” threat.

So revealing the issues of “supply chains” and “outsourcing abroad” neither being very good ideas.

The funny thing is that it was the supply chain issue that also caused the poliricians to back down and stop their quacking. Manufacturing is global, and your manufacturing “feed stock” has to come from somewhere often another country, so you put the squeeze on somebody and somebody else puts the squeeze on you… Entirely predictable but the politicians did not think. A political lesson some big political blocks realy need to think about when it comes to sanctions of that sort, and why China has been embedding it’s influance in “raw resource” countries and claiming the South China Sea, a subject that people tend to avoid.

Any way, no doubt we will both keep “watching this security space” now it’s finally got into the ordinary press and attracted our hosts attention, along with the other security spaces of ICTsec we more normally talk about.

But it might surprise you that security in all it’s forms, was not my primary area of expertise, just one of a number of things I am sufficiently good at to get paid. When young two things interested me, boat design and electronics design especially communications. In effect I’ve had several careers in my time including “intrinsic safety”, “Fail Safe” and “fault tolerant” FMCE, Industrial/manufacturing and Industrial Systems including Petro-Chem and other energy sector and most of what surounds them. Whilst it sounds a lot. Remember a “hinky mind” sees how to transfere fundemental / foundational knowledge from one domain to another, thus you can hit the ground running faster than the average bear, oh and you get a sixth sense for where pitfalls are going to be 😉

There is a saying about,

“There are no new crimes, just old crimes applied in new ways”

Also a similar one about wines and bottles, and nodoubt others. They all tell you that “repurposing” knowledge is rather more fundemental to the way things work than making new discoveries, but it would appear that few people ever learn this, which is a shame because itmakes “breadth” wider than an ocean, where as “depth” makes gullies and canyons.

Winter • September 7, 2021 7:15 AM

@Clive
““WE” –you were involved– were talking about time scales based on full approval at the time.”

YOU might have been, I was most certainly NOT talking about full and final approval. I was talking about deploying a vaccine. But such miscommunications are quite common.

But that being the case, full and final approval has been a bureaucratic mirage anyway, see the FDA approval of the latest Alzheimer “cure”.

JonKnowsNothing • September 7, 2021 11:00 AM

@Clive @All

Speaking of dogs…

The robo-dog is back. This time the AI/ML is attempting to spot “damaged power lines”. It’s scanning power poles but actually it appears to be trying to identify a power pole from a gate post.

There’s loads of things that can damage power lines, like squirrels which seem to enjoy the plastic sheathing, to birds using them as winter warming stations keeping their feet warm.

It’s also been tried as a military pack horse, and sheep herding device. It carries a bucket load of electronic gear to spot the smallest of lambs.

===

ht tps://ww w.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/07/robotic-dog-employed-to-roam-adelaide-streets-in-search-of-damaged-power-lines

(2xURL header break)

JonKnowsNothing • September 7, 2021 11:22 AM

@Winter, Clive

re: Vaccine authorizations…

Tipping a toe in the topic..

There are a good number of vaccination options globally. Perhaps it’s better to ask:
  How many are authorized where you are?

In the US we have 3: 2 mRNA, 1 std

There are many more vaccines than 3 and some are just as useful as any we currently have, especially for those countries doing a 1-Jab-Job-When-2-Are-Needed . The ones not currently on the approved list might do just as well or even have a better result.

Under normal protocols no vaccines would have been allowed in the USA for years pending trials and more trials and more more trials. It is unprecedented that a vaccine would have been approved any earlier.

As to the other (1), in the breadcrumbs there was a link to mABs under development for COVID-19 and other diseases. It might be worth more just than a quick glance over.

The future question is:
  Will the next generation vaccines get a similar fast-track-to-jab-point as the current ones?

===

1, Aducanumab, sold under the brand name Aduhelm, is a medication designed to treat Alzheimer’s disease (AD).[1][2] It is an amyloid beta-directed monoclonal antibody.

Apple ][ for ever ! • September 7, 2021 12:21 PM

Trust no one, whether from Swiss or from Macronistan :
h++ps://www.rt.com/news/534130-swiss-protonmail-french-climate/
Time to reinstall old BBS software with homemade crypto. 🙂

Winter • September 7, 2021 12:36 PM

@Jon
“Will the next generation vaccines get a similar fast-track-to-jab-point as the current ones?”

Vaccines are given to healthy people. Therefore, very stringent safety requirements are imposed, because the benefits for a healthy person should outweigh the risks.

In a raging epidemic of, say Ebola, with very high infection rates and 80% mortality, there was a considerable body count for delaying introduction of a vaccine. That lesson was also learned for the current pandemic.

So, these speeded applications are only appropriate when the alternative of delays has a serious death toll

Winter • September 7, 2021 12:47 PM

@Apple][
“Time to reinstall old BBS software with homemade crypto. 🙂”

That won’t protect your anonymity nor IP.

Proton cannot protect itself nor it’s againstusers the law. But proton does allow the use of Tor or VPNs. The content of the messages is as secure as the end points (more is not possible). If you really need email, make sure the provider does not get any information to share.

SpaceLifeForm • September 7, 2021 3:21 PM

@ Winter, ALL

If you really need email, make sure the provider does not get any information to share.

Impossible. The entire protocol leaks metadata.

hxtps://www.theregister.com/AMP/2021/09/07/protonmail_hands_user_ip_address_police/

Previously, they would respond to a warrant on specific email addresses.

I suspect the burden became too high to manage on an individual warrant basis, so they have decided to go into “Collect it all” mode, and just respond to warrants using grep.

Note that an ip address (even if VPN or TOR), is not the main piece of metadata of interest, and not likely even mentioned in most of the warrants.

The warrants most likely specify email addresses, timeframes, and Subject lines.

Apple ][ for ever ! • September 7, 2021 4:25 PM

@Winter (September 7, 2021 12:47 PM)
I know that (been in the business since 1978). I was half-joking.
Still a little disappointed by Proton’s seemingly very quick submissive behavior.

SpaceLifeForm • September 7, 2021 4:25 PM

Email metadata

This is about Dr. Fauci and threats over email. These people are insane, and obviously can not think. If one is up to no good, they will probably screw up.

ProtonMail and other email providers involved. Warrants will work, and when the idiot in question cross-correlates themselves (via email no less!), it makes it easier for the investigators.

Hint for idiots: do not transfer your other email addresses and passwords via email. Just saying.

hxtps://www.docdroid.net/2taQCJa/517564315-connally-jr1-pdf [13 pages]

- • September 7, 2021 5:41 PM

@SLF:

You got plain PDF download link, that site is tripping alarms.

hxtps://www.docdroid.net/2taQCJa/517564315-connally-jr1-pdf

SpaceLifeForm • September 7, 2021 6:21 PM

@ Weather, Clive

Silicon Turtles

There is no way that the boot sector can be encrypted.

Otherwise, it is not Soft any more.

It could be Firm, which means there is a backdoor that got implanted into Firmware. Microcode level.

If, as it should be, Hard, then the only way to manipulate boot is via switches and buttons.

Soft, Firm, Hard. Pick one. Pick Hard.

echo • September 7, 2021 6:32 PM

@MarkH,

but I distinctly remember comments from you expressing pessimism as to whether an effective vaccine against Covid-19 could ever be developed, and suggesting that if it were possible, the likely time frame would be several years.

I have no idea what Clive is on. A working Covid mRNA vaccine was designed within two weeks. The same is true for the Oxford-AstraZenica vaccine using traditional methods. Both had similar but slightly different design goals. Yes we all expected at first look a vaccine to take 10-20 years to never to developed but the people actually involved with this were more aware of the new technology and data available. Some of it is very recent. A lot of things all came together at just the right time so bingo. The long delay with deployment of the vacciness was very simply down to waiting for the trials to complete.

Because the people involved in all this were basically working flat out they didn’t have time to spend their lives in television studios or writing articles for the media. A fair proportion of this news took most of a year to finally filter out and be written up. I’ve rad some of this stuff and may even hae posted links to it. As for whether anyone bothered reading it or not that’s on them.

I’ve caught Clive ripping me off and repurposing material after a few days or weeks too many times, or simply ignoring material which doesn’t fit with his dominant narrative. He spins a good yarn and can dazzle with maths and jargon. All this is okay to a point but I’ve basically started skipping his stuff as I don’t want to deal with another one of hiss passive-anger attacks.

I have a track record of ahivement too and yes I have pointed people towards authoritative documents on security including those which define seurity. I’ve also tried to tackle various none technology aspects some of which are very very difficult to explain, and when opportunity arose supplied authoritative links when I have discovered them on the working of power or emerging evidence. Lately I have been providing links to people who are the experts and who are working within the public policy sphere and who do have to work within coalitions of opinion to get things done. If I was being nasty I would provide citations for academic or corporate bullying and yes this has been a problem behind the scenes of the Covid response as well as many other problems.

Another thing is while Clive has been busy banging the floor with his cane and shouting at clouds there is a potential mRNA vaccine for AID’s in the pipeline. However you cut it this is big news and there are other potential applications for mRNA now they have basically cracked it. People are alive today because the technology worked. I have no idea why Clive is banging on about the past and is missing this.

The problem with this blog is it has become a personality cult. Sometimes you have to give space for other people to let them grow and shine. You need a certain positive quality and problem solving energy and a sense of being able to achieve something. I’ve seen it when it works and I’ve seen it where it doesn’t work both online and offline. Good morale, mutual support, and teamwork and respect all matter as does, yes, newsworthiness but that’s more a product than a goal in itself. If you have anything any good rest assured someone will steal it but also don’t be arrogant and think you’re the only oen to think of it or the only one to advocate for change. And lastly all those other people bring skills and connections and resoures to the table you don’t have. It’s how society works. And don’t ever ever expect being cited. In my experience that never happens. Advocacy is more of a relay race and you know what? It never ends.

any moose • September 7, 2021 6:43 PM

@Sumadelet

I chose the figures for 2019 because I could not find any more recent. The number of current Tesla Autopilot deaths is TEN, not four, which makes a big difference, as deaths just keep happening.

The number of Teslas sold in 2020 alone was half a million according to Tesla.
https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-q4-2020-vehicle-production-deliveries

Comparing Tesla deaths to other electric vehicles is also interesting. Nissan Leaf has two. Chevy Bolt has one. The vast majority have zero, let alone ones where the vehicle slammed into an emergency vehicle.
https://www.tesladeaths.com/#totals

But you just keep believing that self-drivers are safe.

Clive Robinson • September 7, 2021 9:06 PM

@ echo,

I have no idea what Clive is on. A working Covid mRNA vaccine was designed within two weeks.

No the mRNA vaccine was not designed in two weeks, the mRNA component was.

Your astounding lack of knowledge you demonstrate each time you try to attack me, would be laughable if it were not so sad your whole life here appears to be focused on that, arm waving and making claims that are not independently verifiable.

You’ve already been warned about your harrasment, stalking, and discrimination.

So why compound your errors?

As for,

I’ve caught Clive ripping me off and repurposing material after a few days or weeks too many times,

Again grow up, I’ve yet to see any material that originated from you and you do not link to much other than newspaper articles, Op-Eds, You-Tube videos.

So how you can claim “ripping me off and repurposing material” when it is not your material should be an astonishment to all. Do you actually understand what plagiarism is? Or even “fair use”?

This is quite funny again in a sad way,

I’ve basically started skipping his stuff as I don’t want to deal with another one of hiss passive-anger attacks.

I don’t have “hiss” or if you like “venom” I’m warn blooded can you say the same?

As for “passive-anger attacks” have you not noticed I respond to your attacks on me not the other way around I basically ignore you except when things are egregious. Be sure to include that in the log you claim you are keeping.

As for “skipping” well you have complained you have been Moderated so many times, I guess everyone but @Moderator gets to skip your stuff.

As for,

Another thing is while Clive has been busy banging the floor with his cane and shouting at clouds there is a potential mRNA vaccine for AID’s in the pipeline.

Whilst I originally pointed out COVID was a valid security threat, due to the effects I expected many of which transpired, AID’s is almost a pure social problem not a security one. So, appart from those comparitively few who aquire it through no action / fault of their own (UK blood transfusions with contaminated blood from the US for instance). I’m not seeing why you should mention it on a security blog.

I have no idea why Clive is banging on about the past and is missing this.

Well they have not “cracked it” as you put it. It’s still in the laboratory at best, and in effrct it’s likely to stay there. So where an AIDs vaccine is most needed in Africa, the second and third worlds where the majority of the worlds population and AIDs sufferers are it is of little or no use because of the “chill chain” issues. Why you appear ignorant of this salient fact probably supprises quite a few more people than myself.

But perhaps it is the “tighty whitey” side of you coming out, because untill they fix that chill chain issue it is only likely to be white middle and upper classes or a ways up the socioeconomic ladder that are going to benifit from it.

Yet the other day you claimed without evidence I did not understand such issues. Well maybe not from your arm waving perspective, but certainly down on the ground where it is going to get felt. It is something many engineers are acutely conscious of as they come up against the practical realities of life and death with what they do. I suggest you go and look up “The Ring of Iron” and similar, plus the actual legal and ethical responsabilities that are placed on engineers just as it is with Doctors/nurses/etc, Lawyers, Accountants, and other “Professions” where you require accredited status to practice.

Something tells me you do not have accredited status, or if you did obtain it you nolonger have use of it by your flagrant behaviour.

The problem with this blog is it has become a personality cult. Sometimes you have to give space for other people to let them grow and shine.

Yes and sometimes to use the old expression you are required to,

“Polish a turd.”

But some are all stink and no substance and long stacked up, so the task is one to rival Hercules “fifth labour”. But the Herculean solution is so much easier.

As for,

And don’t ever ever expect being cited.

Yeah well I have been directly cited from a posting to this blog (search and you will find it). As with @Bruce putting me up on a podium it made my ears go red. I’ve also been cited in quite a few other places I did not expect on what for me is a hobby activity which is researching the history of both early industrial processes and some lesser known corners of electromechanical and early electronic cryptography. Google also has for some reason a copy of some paperwork relating to some classified work[1] I was involved with in the 1980’s when I was a little more naive of Government machinations. So being cited does happen, just not often.

Oh and as was pointed out by @Thoth and earlier by @NickP ideas that have been discussed in some depth on this blog have turned up in academic work (C-v-P, “Fleet Broadcast” and numerous “End run attacks”). The classic being @RobertT and I telling people that BadBIOS was not just possible but how, and being told by the alleged experts that it was “not possible”. Then two “security researcher students” published it without accreditation or citation a very short while later and suddenly every “Security Guru” was an expert on it, yeah right… As I’ve noted in the past often things discussed on this blog were about eight years in advance of the ICTsec industry and academic researchers. Some of it like stuff comming out of Tel Aviv University Israel is embarrassing but not surprising re-boiing of not just work that had been done in the 1980’s but done again in academia at Cambridge University Computer labs in the 2000’s. Such as, “PITA Side-Channel Attack”[2],

https://threatpost.com/pita-side-channel-attack-steals-gpg-key-from-laptops/113447/

It is at best an amalgimation of original work long ago done by orhers with the only real new stuff being taking advantage of current consumer technology as opposed to more specialised test equipment of earlier eras.

[1] As far as I can tell from the last time I looked via the UK national archives at Kew, it is still classified. But the fact Google has it, suggests the DWS or GCHQ passed it over to one of the US agencies at some point who then in effect declassified it possibly incorrectly (it is a very dull synopsis of some practical tests of equipment that got eventually sold for scrap, so why it would still be classified I’ve no idea). For those that are eternally curious I have posted a link to it twice on this blog in the past, but that was before I found out it might still be classified in the UK.

[2] The article was clearly not written by anyone with relevant technical knowledge as it contains mistakes some of which an RF engineer would spot immediately (like with the shielded loop). Likewise others who practice in the various knowledge domains covered.

Clive Robinson • September 7, 2021 9:55 PM

@ any moose, Sumadelet,

But you just keep believing that self-drivers are safe.

Whilst I can see what you are worried about your argument is letting you down.

For instance “self-drivers are safe”. Says Who? And Why?

They “are” and “are not” safe, it depends on your definition of “safe”, which you’ve not given. Importantly you have to specify the environment as well which is in no way under any designers control (it is why “self driving” light railways have high fences alongside the tracks to keep people off of them.

Which brings your argument of “accidents with emergancy vehicles”, “The law of Small Numbers” applies to it. Which makes it look like you might be “cherry picking” an issue that supports your argument but in reality is little more than statistical noise (yes I am aware that others will pick other arguments to portray a different or opposite picture).

I’ve spent a number of years designing safety systems along with fail safe systems. I’ll let you into a little secret that engineers talk about amoungst themselves but don’t generally make widely known,

All technology systems are dangerous according to the measure you use.

And another which applies to humans as well,

There are no accidents, they are all predictable and avoidable, if you have sufficient sensors and the time to process their signals.

This second one is a “legal nightmare” as any half competant lawyer will make the lack of a sensor or the inability to process a signal in time sound like “culpable negligence” and then work up to homicide or damages.

To lawyers natures limits like the speed of light or inertia do not apply, thus in their eyes all systems must be impossibly safe. Such as being capable of stoping instantly on a dime or miraculously jump through time or similar — theoretical– impossibility (trust me on this that realy is what they will try to argue or something similar).

But ask any driver that’s had a fender bender or monocoque / monocock crumple they will rarely say I was not looking, you will get something like “they came out of the blind spot” or similar.

But at the end of the day most human drivers are “bad drivers” as many tests have shown. Put simply to do the required amount of concentration and observation needed to drive at more than around 20mph will cause you nervous colapse fairly quickly…

So the question is I guess is,

“How do self-drivers compare to humans?”

It is not going to be easy to say and the self-driver has an advantage, it does not get tired, iritable or stressed.

SpaceLifeForm • September 8, 2021 1:16 AM

@ Weather, Clive

I was not clear when I wrote:

There is no way that the boot sector can be encrypted.

Yes, it could be encrypted. But that means two things:

  1. Either you must supply a key at some point, to some already executing code, that probably can leak the key later, or the key is hardcoded into the firmware, and therefore, you really do not own the device.
  2. It is not really a boot sector anymore because there is already executing code, and the sector is just going to be used to chain load.

If you can not hard boot from your own controlled boot sector, then you are just playing around with Silicon Turtles.

Actually, the Silicon Turtles are playing with you!

echo • September 8, 2021 1:57 AM

https://www.ecchr.eu/en/press-release/historic-victory-before-french-supreme-court-on-the-indictment-of-multinational-lafarge-for-complicity-in-crimes-against-humanity-in-syria/

Historic victory before French Supreme Court on the indictment of multinational Lafarge for complicity in crimes against humanity in Syria

Today, France’s highest court, the Cour de cassation, decided that Lafarge’s indictment for complicity in crimes against humanity was wrongly canceled by the Paris Appeals Court. This charge had been issued in connection to payments made by Lafarge to the Islamic State and other armed groups in Syria between 2012 and 2014. Today, the Supreme Court found that knowingly transferring millions of dollars to an organization whose sole purpose is criminal is enough to characterize complicity. The Supreme Court therefore ordered for the case to be sent back to the Appeals Court on this charge.

Today’s decision is deemed crucial for corporate accountability. It follows a criminal complaint filed in 2016 by eleven former employees of Lafarge together with NGOs Sherpa and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.

This is an important judgment. I think it may make a few people think twice about who they give money to if there is any doubt about their compliance with human rights law.

JonKnowsNothing • September 8, 2021 2:31 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, Weather, Clive

re: Encrypting boot loader code

There maybe 2 parts of the problem. 1) the code itself 2) the location

When the system is powered on or plugged in, something is supposed to happen somewhere. If that area is encrypted a decryption has to take place to execute the code. If the location is not secure, even an encrypted file can be overwritten with another file.

  ABooter thought to be secure replaced by BaBadBooter with backdoor

In the terms of boot code there’s a lot of places in a system that can be attacked. GPUs were popular for a while. Zombie code and that ever popular: special spec feature that’s not locked down (1).

Even if ABooter is secure and the boot sector safe, you would need to make sure all other startup areas and drivers have the same protection.

===
1, I used to store a backup directory on an undefined area of the disk. If the directory got trashed (which happened often), I could overwrite the directory. Required reading past the user spec to the hw spec and understanding where things were on the disk sectors.

Sumadelet • September 8, 2021 3:24 AM

@any moose

I am afraid to say you appear to be mixing up your statistics.

You are entirely correct in saying that:

The number of current Tesla Autopilot deaths is TEN, not four,…

if you mean the current running total over ALL years, but for 2019 alone in the USA it is 4. You are free to check.

In your original post you said

there were 170 fatalities in the US in 2019 involving emergency vehicles

and not 170 fatalities SINCE 2019. So it is reasonable to compare the statistics for 2019.

If we look at the Tesla autopilots death statistics since 2016
Year – Total – USA only
2016 – 2 – 1
2017 – 0 – 0
2018 – 2 – 1
2019 – 4 – 4
2020 – 1 – 0

So in 2020, when the population of Teslas on the road in the USA could reasonably be assumed to have increased from 2019, the number of Autopilot associated deaths, according to your statistics, was zero. In 2021 so far, there is one reported death in the statistics.

The NHTSA are looking into reports of Teslas colliding with emergency vehicles and will have their reasons, but the statistics are not exactly overwhelming.

Clive Robinson • September 8, 2021 3:45 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

If you can not hard boot from your own controlled boot sector, then you are just playing around with Silicon Turtles.

Correct.

It’s been discussed here,before with regards the original Microsoft attempt to “own your system” at “boot time” with it’s trusted platform ideas that basically favoured “Big IP” like the entertainment industry over not just what you owned hardware wise but more important your ability to create without paying them vast amounts of money as “rent”.

The funny side of it was Google made it clear to Microsoft that it would sue them into the ground if Microsoft “locked the loader” to stop Android on smart devices pads eyc… But then not only locked the loader on smart devices, it also forced a walled garden on the users…

If @Wael is still tuned in he used to have more of the history as it progressed to “Unified Extensible Firmware Interface”(UEFI) that replaced the BIOS.

If you remember back to BadBIOS one of the things I had to remind people of was the legacy “Apple ][ hole” that Microsoft still honoured, and that the AC97 audio chips on all motherboards were all from the same manufacturer.

But back to the problem,

Basically if you design upgradable hardware, you have to have a firmware process that not just alows new hardware to boot up but then provide an interface for the OS to be able to use it when fully booted.

Back in the 1970’s when we were all young or not even a twinkle in a Grandfathers eye, Apple developed the Apple ][ with “extension slots” that had a part of the 64k/byte memory map of the 6502 reserved for I/O ROM. On 2k boundries, if there was a two byte pattern it was assumed it was the start of a valid IO ROM on an IO card. The contents of the ROM became fixed in memory. So when the OS (via the language card) booted it respected this IO memory mapping and hooked in any IO drivers.

So whilst the Apple ][ was not originally designed to have a hard drive, it was later possible to add one. Because the code in the ROM on the hard drive IO card mapped it’s self into memory and hooked it’s driver into the storage code (can not off the top of my head remember if it was the tape code it hooked or the floppy code).

When you think about it if anyone had designed an Evil Maid style I/O card back then, this I/O ROM hole would have given it “the key to the empire” (though it was less than a backyard in those days of at beat 300baud comms).

Well back in the early 1980’s the IBM skunk works project bods that designed the IBM PC thought this IO upgrade ability was a realy neat idea, so copied it from Apple.

And Microsoft honoured it in MS-DOS and thus into NT… Remember I said the other day that the NT 3.5.1 kernel code still lurks beneath Win 10? with it’s third of a century old security holes well this I/O mechanism was one of them (and quite usefull for me for a couple of decades at least).

It got highlighted for BadBIOS by myself and @RobertT as well as an unnamed Lenovo engineer using it to put “persistant malware” on Lenovo’s low end consumer lap tops.

As a back-door it was a real doozy and enabled all sorts of tricks with “Net-ROM” network cards (how I used it because the cards were cheap and innocuous as they would run with or without a Net-ROM and at that time many PC’s had Net-ROM ready network cards installed without the Net-ROM any way… So all you had to carry was a couple of standard byte-wise ROMs with your backdoor, keylogger etc code in them, because the spec for the network card gave RAM as well it gave a nice little “standard environment” and access to communications, what more could you want 😉

It’s why I’ve persistantly warned about FLASH ROM on I/O devices, as an ordinary user you can not see it without “tools” so the likes of the tripple ARM CPU with Flash ROM and lots of RAM on a “System On a Chip”(SOC) device on your hard drive or network card is a real security issue though you very rarely hear it mentioned.

Though I did highlight it back with the Ed Snowden trove, when a pissing contest between the then editor of The Guardian and UK Cabinate Office Minister caused “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” to be sent down to London from GCHQ on a shoping trip, and to wreck a couple of Apple computers deep in the bowels of Grauniad Towers with Dremels and other hand tools of mass silicon distruction, in passing. The Guardian published a picture of the mother board with ground down chips as their “weekend center fold” and as I pointed out at the time it had a wealth of useful security information on it about hidden from the user Flash ROM etc.

So yup, turtles a long way down, but yes you can get lower but we will save that for another day.

Who? • September 8, 2021 5:43 AM

The new bitcoin ATMs and hot wallet (“chivo”) deployed by the government of El Salvador leak too many information about the person (either natural or legal) that uses their services:

hxxps://twitter.com/BITPAINTCLUB/status/1435360846817992705

Anders • September 8, 2021 8:56 AM

@ALL

hxxps://news.err.ee/1608331628/state-could-be-hiding-millions-of-documents-intended-for-the-public

This has become rule here. Government sector hides documents by classifying them as “internal use only” and this is their tool
of choice to cover up all kind of shady procurement deals,
corruption etc.

Who? • September 8, 2021 9:39 AM

More about the app used by the government of El Salvador

It seems this hot wallet app (“chivo wallet”) does not only leak private information that should not be gathered in first place, it requires permission to access the microphone on the cell phone and sends the full list of contacts stored on the smartphone to a computer owned by the government too.

hxxps://mobile.twitter.com/Rchr2M/status/1435241226731667462

lurker • September 8, 2021 2:04 PM

@Who? More about the app used by the government of El Salvador

Not that the average user would, but what happens if you turn off access to mic, contacts, &c?

A local economist raised the old bogey of the banana republic because BC does not fit any of the usual definitions of a currency.

Who? • September 8, 2021 3:46 PM

@ lurker

I am certainly not an expert on smartphones, as I do not own one. I understand you cannot disable/block access to these services from the app without breaking it. Android has some sort of firewall that allows blocking access to these services on a per-app basis; some years ago I blocked access to certain services from a banking app and it broke until re-enabled.

BTC had an important role as store of value; however recent developments (I am talking mostly about the lightning network) allows it being used as currency, allowing fast transfers and low rates.

It is not clear ETH is better as currency than BTC these days.

SpaceLifeForm • September 8, 2021 4:09 PM

@ Clive

When GCHQ directed the destruction of the hardware, they were not worried about the data. They were worried that an implanted backdoor would be discovered. They specifically directed the destruction of specific components on the motherboard that were not just CPU, RAM, or caps. Had to be hidden Flash.

If it was just about the data, Guardian could have just turned over the storage media, because, as they correctly pointed out, copies existed elsewhere.

GCHQ wanted to know that the Silicon Turtles were dead.

hxtps://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-destroyed-london

The intelligence men stood over Johnson and Blishen as they went to work on the hard drives and memory chips with angle grinders and drills, pointing out the critical points on circuit boards to attack. They took pictures as the debris was swept up but took nothing away.

Who? • September 8, 2021 4:14 PM

@ lurker

BTC meets the requirements to be considered currency: it has salability across scales, space and time; it is difficult to manufacture so its supply is hard to increase, in other words, it is “hard money” as a difference to USD/EUR “easy money” that is highly inflationary. Over time it is assuming a role as a widely accepted medium of exchange, so it is considered money.

We are assisting to a fight between the keynesian and austrian schools. An interesting matter that earns a detailed analysis, but I believe this analysis is not the objective of this blog.

Apple ][ for ever ! • September 8, 2021 5:27 PM

@Clive Robinson (September 8, 2021 3:45 AM) :
No relation with legacy security holes but a mere digression : “the NT 3.5.1 kernel code still lurks beneath Win 10”. Well, I guess you won’t agree, but “In Win9X code, there are almost certainly many invisible remnants of CP/M structures, a fact which may be seen as a warning to these young generations for which computing history begins with Windows and C++ : precursor geniuses (Kildall, Wozniak and many others, almost all forgotten now) have shaped our present as they have shaped our future.” This reminds me of Andrew “Undocumented” Schulman rightly advocating, aeons ago, in favor of keeping carefully hand-tuned 16-bit code in Win95 without sacrifying to “32-bit everywhere” craze of the time for kernel and graphics subsystem.
Sorry to have used your sentence as a way to remind myself of older and more interesting times. 😉

Mowmowfi • September 8, 2021 5:44 PM

@john Clive self others
You don’t need to find the lowest turtle, I’m starting of thinking up a old project, Microsoft kernel was normally hard to find bugs, but I might write a interactive dissembler from boot.
@jon
Yeah I remembered calling ax,DX and int to write a pixel on the screen, not to mention sectors,block for HDD, but does that work on new Os?
Would like to finish off this sha2 thing, but supposable markh is the only one working on it.
Old habits die hard.

SpaceLifeForm • September 8, 2021 5:57 PM

HTML hangs in the game

Old webpage, 27 years. Seems to have aged fairly well. Note this is pre-https. Allegedly, the oldest web page around. Probably true.

hxtp://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

26 warnings, 9 errors

hxtps://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=http%3A%2F%2Finfo.cern.ch%2Fhypertext%2FWWW%2FTheProject.html

MarkH • September 8, 2021 9:33 PM

@Who?

The criteria specified in your comment well describe a variety of commodities; they poorly represent the accepted definition of currency.

People can make or lose money (real money) trading commodities.

I suggest that few with serious education in economics or finance regard the non-crypto non-currencies as anything other than commodities which can be traded.

Clive Robinson • September 9, 2021 1:27 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

When GCHQ directed the destruction of the hardware, they were not worried about the data. They were worried that an implanted backdoor would be discovered.

Yes, but not quite in the way that might sound to some, there are after all a few more differences than just letters between “precaution” and “paranoia”, though with some government agencies it’s hard to tell 😉

As you know one of the problems with this new blog, is we do not know what length of post, number of links, and what words are on the “naughty list”, so when a comment we make will get “road rash” as it were. So the result is we have to “write less” –in a message– but have to “write more” –messages- to convey the information[1].

GCHQ certainly was aware of what would become the “Flash ROM” problem from the earliest days of practical computing and “ring core memory” which had a hysteresis resedue issue. Put simply even the rings that were supposed not to, retained a slight bias of the last state they were in so data could still be read out after the computer had been powered down, thus was a significant security concern.

So GCHQ like the NSA and presumably other National Security agencies kept a very close eye on “memory developments” so ended up knowing when chips had writeable memory in them that the manufacturers kept hidden. One such was modem chips, Rockwell put a 6502 CPU RAM and ROM in that even their biggest customs did not know about for quite some time. Even today when you buy what were once MSI up parts, hidden writable ROM is in them for “configuration” or the modern equivalent of “Select on test” components. It is almost as though designing a “state machine” is a “lost art” these days and shoving a full blown CPU etc in is the prefered way to go for chip designers.

As we now know even the battery managment chip in Apple battery packs can have malware put in them. All an attacker needs is “access” some how, and with appropriate knowledge that can be from around the other side of the planet. So Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Holland, India, Iran, Israel, New Zealand, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, UK, US, are all “known” to push state level malware. And I guess all countries inbetween, I guess even Eritrea long regarded as the least connected country in the world as well, as every Government appears to be doing it these days…

So GCHQ in theory was being precautionary, although with the way the seniors in the UK government of the time were behaving and effectively “throwing their toys out of the pram” in fits of peak and pi55ing contests, I’d not rule out any kind of mental disorder.

When I said above,

“The Guardian published a picture of the mother board with ground down chips as their “weekend center fold” and as I pointed out at the time it had a wealth of useful security information on it about hidden from the user Flash ROM etc.”

For brevity I left out that I’d also said at the time that someone should compare the picture to an untrashed motherboard to get a list of chips to be wary of. As well as stick the picture in University and similar courses. As far as I can remember nobody did either, which is an ICTsec industry loss…

So less than a decade later the lessons about “hidden Flash ROM” in IO devices on computers being a place where malware could be hidden looks “lost to all but a few” again. Not sure what it says about the ICTsec industry in totality, but it’s not good at any level.

Do I need to say the old saw of “Those who don’t learn from history…” yet again?

[1] The odd thing about this “write less” actually means you have to “write more”, as you have to repeate so much stuff to set context etc again. So it falls under the law of “false economy”, which network engineers have known about with “packet size” for oh probably 50years, and commercial communications engineers 60-70years. But even telegraphers going back more than a century and a half knew it because they were the much put-upon people taping it out. One such being Alfred Vail who was the person who made Morse Code actually usable. But even reducing effort at one level did not solve it at another level where addressing and later routing information just heaped it back on again. So even back in the 1840’s the idea of a layers in communications protocols was understood.

Clive Robinson • September 9, 2021 2:29 AM

@ Apple ][ forever!,

Well, I guess you won’t agree, but “In Win9X code, there are almost certainly many invisible remnants of CP/M structures, a fact which may be seen as a warning to these young generations…

I don’t know why you think I wouldn’t agree, I still for various support reasons of “Industrial Control Systems”(ICS) still use not just MS Win9X and ME OS’s but back to MS-DOS 3.3 (and still have original disks for Win 2).

I also still have a working Apple ][ with the UCSD P-System and Pascal and Fortran, because code I wrote to control test equipment and environmental control systems is still out there being used and people still want support…

Then there are the embedded Z80 systems so yes CP/M as well. Whilst I mainly use a Linux box and tool chain for that, I occasionaly have to dig out the Microsoft Z80 card for the Apple.

I am by nature a down and dirty hardware level assembler programer not a high level language user and wrote my own C compiler and tool chain set for the IBM PC some sizeable fraction of a century ago 😉 that I still use to support code.

What many do not realise is all the MS-DOS tools back in 3.3 like Debug, Edit and Basic all run under even 64bit Linux without difficulty.

It surprises people when they see me make changes to code on modern(ish) computer, write it out to a USB floppy drivr, and then boot up a 8088 or 286 based computer to test the runtime on

But what blows some peoples socks of is when I change a VHF radio modem I designed. It uses a still available VLSI chip, that has an upgraded 6502 CPU in it,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDC_65C02

Winter • September 9, 2021 3:57 AM

@MarkH, Who, All
“The criteria specified in your comment well describe a variety of commodities; they poorly represent the accepted definition of currency.”

Tobacco has been a currency for more than a century. So why should we not treat BTC as currency?

ht tps://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/tobacco-money

The fact that many do not like it is not relevant.

Clive Robinson • September 9, 2021 5:13 AM

@ Who?, MarkH, Sut Vachz, Winter,

BTC meets the requirements to be considered currency

Some peoples requirments, but not others. It also has all sorts of issues that most current currencys do not.

For instance the issue of “anonymity”, you get that with most current actual coin in your pocket currencies but not crypto currencies due to the likes of “double spend fraud prevention”…

Also the cost of transactions has been turned into a profit center.

Which highlights one truism in life,

“The trouble with “new””,

Is all the old crimes and disadvantages it allows to be used again.

Winter • September 9, 2021 5:52 AM

@Clive
“For instance the issue of “anonymity”, you get that with most current actual coin in your pocket currencies but not crypto currencies due to the likes of “double spend fraud prevention”…

Also the cost of transactions has been turned into a profit center.”

Now compare this to “electronic” dollars $, ie, Credit Cards.
CC “anonymity” is an oxymoron. And the profits of the CC companies are legendary.

And physical currency, notes and coins, is not cheap, see, e.g.:
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2014/07/05/under-the-microscope-the-real-costs-of-a-dollar/

If you compare BTC to “real” money, i.e., bank accounts and credit card money, BTC is not really that “weird”.

And if you calculate the energy costs of the banking sector, then BTC uses only half that amount (for less money value, it is true). So the energy use of BTC is not that exceptional.

ht tps://www.ledger.com/energy-consumption-crypto-vs-fiat

Clive Robinson • September 9, 2021 6:39 AM

@ Winter,

Now compare this to “electronic” dollars $, ie, Credit Cards.

The word “Credit” tells you it’s not coinage, but a mediated transaction

The two are not comparable, coinage only needs two parties for a normal payment transaction. There is usually no transaction or other fees involved at the point of payment.

A credit card or other payment card requires three or more parties one of whom holds a ledger and does reconciliation. They make profit by seniorage as well as transaction fees and merchant fees and all sorts of costs to all the other involved parties.

Winter • September 9, 2021 7:01 AM

@Clive
“The two are not comparable, coinage only needs two parties for a normal payment transaction.”

Try to buy a house with coinage. By far the majority of dollar transactions are by electronic means. AML laws are preventing the use of coinage in anything but small transactions. Nothing like investing your pension in, or buying cars or houses.

@Clive
“The word “Credit” tells you it’s not coinage, but a mediated transaction”

All monetary transactions above a $10,000 are mediated by law (AML requirements), but most of those over $20 seem to be mediated nowadays.

“Credit” is actually what makes a currency useful money. Read:
Debt: The First 5000 Years, by David Graeber.

Clive Robinson • September 9, 2021 7:15 AM

@ Winter,

I’d go back and read that Ledger article again, it’s mixing different units (energy power) and not doing like for like comparisons.

Thus it looks more than somewhat suspect especially the “350 Kilowatts” claim for a laptop… Then the “74.1% of its electricity from renewable sources” is suspect as well though with the China crackdown who knows…

But way to many of the link sources it’s using come from Crypto Currancy promoting sites…

It’s going to take me to long to do a proper analysis, so I’m using a way longer than 6ft pole on it.

Winter • September 9, 2021 7:38 AM

@Clive
“But way to many of the link sources it’s using come from Crypto Currancy promoting sites…”

Which is a silly argument. No one has yet produced a peer-reviewed study comparing the environmental impacts of Cryptocurrencies versus the banking system. Those disparaging the cryptocurrencies on this point have been turning a blind eye towards the banking sector.

@Clive
“Thus it looks more than somewhat suspect especially the “350 Kilowatts” claim for a laptop…”
Banks run computers too, and a lot of them. IT is time to acknowledge that. Furthermore, banks are horribly inefficient and run at suspiciously high profit rates. The remittance industry is a leech upon the poor.

Modern societies, i.e., NOT the USA, run on electronic money. The difference between electronic money and cryptocurrencies is much smaller than is generally acknowledged. Cryptocurrencies are currently in their wild-west phase. But everyone in the financial industry is moving towards something of a ledger-based currency in one shape or another.

The world of gold and coinage really is that of the 19th century. If you want to go back there, you will also have to go back to the living conditions, and inequalities, of that time.

Clive Robinson • September 9, 2021 7:39 AM

@ Winter,

“Credit” is actually what makes a currency useful money.

That is a famous “circular argument”.

It says lending alows increased investment which increases inflation thus actually reduces the cost of borrowing money over time. Which in turn increases the economy thus money supply which makes further borrowing easier.

Whilst there might be some truth[1] in that for a business, it’s rarely true for the borrowing individuals make and who get hurt because their savings such as funds for their childrens education and their own pensions get devalued in real terms.

Whilst “credit” does effect the security of the money supply I don’t actually regard it as being a “security issue” when you look at US fiscal policy it’s just “Keep on printing money” with that in place money of all types that is not bassed on assets is a joke. Because every shyster will figure out an angle, which is what we see with the crooked behaviour of the myriad of faux fiscal instruments and markets.

In essence it’s a rigged market and you are the mark, the best you can hope for is to draw whilst they win, and most others loose.

[1] When the banks stopped lending because those who loaned them the money such as soverign investment got “cold feet” during FC1&2 even though some goverments made money available through the central bank, banks would still not loan money. There reasons are much mired in controversy and acrimonious debate, but the upshot is the usual “economists view” argument was found very wanting due to a number of incorrect base assumptions.

Winter • September 9, 2021 8:00 AM

@Clive
“It says lending alows increased investment which increases inflation thus actually reduces the cost of borrowing money over time. ”

No, bank notes, fiat money, were created as letters of credit by banks. Official national currencies, or national banks, were established to handle credits and raising money, mostly for waging war.

Cash money is credit money.

PS, gold was installed as a currency to pay mercenaries/soldiers out of the loot of war. People were forced to accept them by leveling taxes in coins/cash.

JonKnowsNothing • September 9, 2021 8:21 AM

@Winter, Clive

re Try to buy a house with coinage

a) Nearly all transactions for real estate in “western economies” use coinage. What you may not recognize is that a bank-lender loan is still coinage when it completes the escrow-transfer point. You may only be providing a small percentage of that amount and the bank is providing the rest but at point of transfer: Money or coinage happens

b) It is completely possible to buy property for coinage and in many cases it’s the only possible method of doing so. In the USA there are 2 components to buying a property: land and improvements. Improvements are house, septic, water etc. Land is the dirt part. Dirt in “western economies” has very little value, the value is in the improvements: the building part.

Globally there are many schemes about how to sell and finance these transactions. In the USA, you cannot get a bank loan to buy dirt, you have to pay with coinage. You might get the seller to finance the purchase because if the $$ amounts are large, most people cannot reach in their pockets and pull out that much coinage. So, dirt is bought direct with coinage. Property developers are able to finance their dirt purchases because they leverage the future housing sales to do so.

c) Buying all-in for coinage. You can buy property and housing and/or build your own but you will not be able to do that in any large urban or metropolitan area where competition for living space mimics over populated rats-in-cages. People have “expectations” and this is what drives property prices. Granite counters, multiple bathrooms, a bedroom for every person, extra space to store cars, more space for the swimming pool etc etc. A good portion of the planet does not live like this and it’s arguable that it’s a sustainable model going forward. If you dump your expectations you can buy for coinage and no mortgage (really a long term rent agreement where you wait 30+ years for ownership).

d) If you are on the extraordinary wealthy list or have a title-for-sale they also pay coinage, no loans. No loans, means you do not have to provide any financial documents like tax returns. One exchange and done.

e) All real estate in the USA has some form of “title or deed” and you do have to pay for that transaction to be recorded. The question of “who owns what” is not a minor question. Property lines are drawn, redrawn on the placement of a “.”(full stop). There is also the historical questions about ownership that many are being asked and which raise uncomfortable realizations.

iirc(bad) There are 2 methods of original property acquisition in western economies: Conquest and Discovery. Neither means there wasn’t someone else here before that.

Winter • September 9, 2021 9:24 AM

@Jon
“Nearly all transactions for real estate in “western economies” use coinage.”

I think I used the wrong word. I was meaning cash, like banknotes. I am not aware that there are many places where it is still possible to buy houses with a suitcase of cash.

JonKnowsNothing • September 9, 2021 3:35 PM

@Winter

re: I am not aware that there are many places where it is still possible to buy houses with a suitcase of cash.

In many areas, this is the only way to buy the house+property because of the way US Banking defines “home loans”.

We have 2 primary definitions: Conventional and Nonconforming plus another hiccup called Chattel Loans,

For normal conventional loans, the property and building (remember you cannot buy dirt only) must meet certain standards and building requirements.

For Nonconforming loans, there is some aspect that does not fit within the first definition, like exceeding the maximum amount of loan the bank can finance under the first definition.

Chattel loans are used for vehicles, cars, trucks and RVs. There are 2 basic groups for these:

  1. people who enjoy periodic vacations and limited time camping and pay to park their towable home-from-home in a RV Parking Lot.
  2. people who have no choice but to live in their cars, trucks, RVs, trailers and count themselves lucky to have a semi-waterproof roof and park wherever they can for however long the local enforcement detail lets them.

RLExamples

Within 100 mile radius of Central California, you will find many many properties for sale with living area/building having septic, water(well) and power often on 2-5 acres (2.5 hectares) that CANNOT qualify for ANY bank loans. No Bank will finance these and the only way you buy them is for Cash-in-SuitCase and/or seller-financing. Prices run from $80,000 USD to $250,000 USD depending on the location, state of repair and other aspects of the property.

The reason has to do with how the building is classified in the tax+banking regulations. These buildings (mobile home, manufactured home, tinyhouse-on-wheels, ParkModelRV) have limited life expectancy (durability of building) and are classified as “Chattle” same as cars, trucks. This means the buildings “depreciate” or lose their value over time. After @10 years the value is zero.

Many people live in these types of housing and there are aspects of them that vary by region. New they cost $100,000-$500,000 can be 3+ bedrooms, large kitchens, granite counters, dinning areas with chandeliers, family rooms and multiple bathrooms but over time they depreciate to zero. Once the depreciation hits a No-Return-On-Investment you cannot get a loan for the property where such a building exists,unless you plan to tear it down or remove it (another non-trivial headache).

It does not have to be this way because these buildings can be upgraded, renovated, improved but as they are classified the same as cars, they do not.

Bring your $200,000 USD in cash=in-suitcase and you can buy a place not too far from urban extravagance. Plenty of Open Space, room for gardens, play yards, workshops and yoga-studios; Wifi or Satellite. Views you can only dream of. You can have your pick.

Clive Robinson • September 9, 2021 7:34 PM

@ Anders,

They didn’t just analyze the viruses they have found if they can infect humans. They specifically altered them so that they can infect the humans. I understand that part of that research was the goal to create or engineer the virus that can effectively infect humans.

Err no, that is not the intent of “gain of function” experimentation or what it is supposadly for.

But first treat,

1, Geneticaly modified mice.
2, Pathogen editing/mutation.

As entirely seperate and distinct processes, otherwise you will miss major risks.

Any living creature that can be infected by a pathogen can naturaly mutate the pathogen and so change any of it’s major characteristics such as it’s infectivity, virulence etc.

So if I modify a mouse to have some human characteristics not only am I making a chimera, I’m also making it susceptable to pathogens it has no natural immunity to. That is a pathogen that previously mice were never infected by they are now “novel” to, thus easily infected. What happens to any “natural mutations” that might happen in such a mouse? Well you could end up with a new hybrid pathogen that infects both “mice and men” or neither as well as changing the desired human or mice specific characteristics.

Which means that significant extra care needs to be taken when handling such chimeric creatures.

When young I used to keep rodents such as mice and rats. There are proper ways to pick them up. Basically you get the base of their tail between your thumb and fore finger. However it is easy to go a little to far from the base, thus enabling the rodent to curl up and get it’s teeth or fore claws into your insufficiently cautious flesh… Even through “lab gloves”.

It’s even possible for the rodent to bite and draw/infect human blood. To put it simply its a “Natural Hazzard” there is little or nothing you can do.

Anders • September 9, 2021 8:49 PM

@Clive

The sole purpose to have such a “super mouse” is to test whether virus can infect a human or not.

Yes, you can collect viruses from bats and test on “super mouse” if that virus is capable of infecting human and how effectively. Perfectly normal testing.

But when you start engineering viruses, what purpose is to engineer harmless virus and test it on “super mouse”?

Add there things like Fauci first lied about research and finances. Why was he lying? What was the USA motive in this project if Fauci lied right in the start? You don’t lie if you have clean motive, goal to make world better. This smells like some black bag financed project.

Anonymous • September 9, 2021 9:54 PM

@ Anders, Clive

The guano harvesters. Whether guano harvester or bat researcher, if they went into the caves, odds were good that they were exposed.

Winter • September 10, 2021 2:16 AM

@Jon
“In many areas, this is the only way to buy the house+property because of the way US Banking defines “home loans”.”

Strange. I was under the impression that Anti Money Laundering laws made cash payments over $10,000 impractical to impossible.

I knew the financial system in the US was backwards, but not that it is impossible to send house payments by bank transfer. I surely would not want to drive around with $100,000 in banknotes.

Clive Robinson • September 10, 2021 3:55 AM

@ Anonymous, Anders,

The guano harvesters.

Yup.

It happend nearly a year before the infections in Wuhan.

Whilst it was a concern at the time, it did not raise enough flags to cause it to be sufficiently investigated. It was thus “assumed” to have be a number of very bad responses to seasonal respiratory diseases, but now a few people are rightly questioning this, which is inconvenient for others.

Which has made it at the very least a “nail sticking up” in the “political narative”, that apparantly can not be banged down. So they are trying to hang a “Move on, Nothing to see” notice on it… But rather than being a “nail sticking up” will it be a “loose thread that unravels”.

So the important questions are “What remains?” that now can be tested or examined… And “How can it be protected?” so that if something is found, it can be verified to stop the “laboratory cross contamination” etc arguments stoping it being properly investigated.

Because at the end of the day we as a species do not want “political naratives” and “conveniant truths” but very real hard facts if we are to survive.

Even though there has been a very tragic, uncountable, and needless loss of life, each one somebodies family member or friend, from this pandemic, politicians created, we have sofar “dodged a bullet” with SARS-CoV-2.

That is something we should be keeping at the forefront of our thinking even though it is “politically inconvenient”, because we may not be as lucky with the next one that is without any doubt waiting “off stage” to come and perform.

But we also need to be mindfull that “sofar” is just a point in time SARS-CoV-2 is by nomeans finished with us. The “dominant mutations” are clearly getting worse, that is they are becoming not just more infectious, their ability to main and kill appears is also getting worse and in younger people. Yet our political policies in the West of the northern hemisphere are positively encoraging the breeding of new dominant mutations…

If SARS-CoV-2 becomes truely endemic we should ask “At what harm to humanity?”. Well we know that it is mutating in a way that is moving down the age scale. Children are now being maimed and are dying, and they are not all suffering from co-morbidities. There is therefore the question as to the effect on the average life expectancy globally, regionally and locally and “Who carries the worst of it?” and “Who benifits from this?”. Likewise “Long COVID” is having a detrimental effect and we currently have no way of knowing what the real longterm effects are. It is now being more frequently argued that long term diseases that are fatal without expensive intervention such as cancers, autoimmune, and dementias are the result of infective pathogens such as viruses.

So there are “uncomfortable truths” out there, and we need to face them whilst we might still be able to effect the outcome.

There are many very hard leasons we need to learn from SARS-CoV-2, and to do that we should not just “look in the mirror”. We should also not be alowing others to hide the required knowledge because it is “politically inconvenient”. Or worse alow others to abuse it for an Orwellian “political narative” conveniant for a favoured few.

JonKnowsNothing • September 10, 2021 4:45 AM

@Winter

re: Wheelbarrows of cash

Paying in cash, means no loans from financial institutions. Any large cash transfer or exchange done through banking systems may have to show “origin of funds” like savings, and large transactions are reported to certain LEAs.

There are lots of items available for straight up coinage: auctions are a common venue and there are plenty of small ones that are Cash Only exchanges. Bring cash or provide proof-of-ability-to-pay.

If you want one of the property types I indicated you need cash-in-fist of @$200,000 USD. Where that’s parked is up to you. Plenty of folks still keep it in the mattress because they buy and sell big ticket items often. You can hardly go to any farm sale to purchase something, cattle, horses, farm trucks without a wad in your pocket.

A fair few will bring a certified check or send a wire transfer (ahem…) to the title company as part of the sale and deed transfer. The title has to be clear (no liens or other legal issues) and deed has to be recorded for the sale to complete. With All Cash this is 2-3 weeks and the property is yours.

It should be noted that very few people can do this, even though its a “good deal” because few have $200,000 USD in disposable income. A good number of home owner wannabes cannot raise even $20,000 USD as the required minimum down payment for a bank financed home. Once the banks and large scale builders get involved the price shoots up significantly 2x to 8x. Folks that have such cash reserves aren’t interested in a zero-value mobile home; they prefer to live next to the Rich and Famous and far away from the barnyard.

Even if you do have $200,000 USD in cash to drop on such a property, it’s not all smooth sailing. Deferred maintenance and repairs plus any remodeling might cost you another $150,000+. Fixing a well pump is not a cheap repair. Re-patching the roof isn’t too bad, $500-1,000 USD. If you are not a DIYer labor costs can be eye wateringly expensive.

There are equal deals all over Europe too. Head out to the Massif Central in France, or remoter regions of Italy, and plenty of towns in Spain. You might buy an entire town for that kind of money. Of course the slate or tile roofs have caved in long ago and few remember how to put up a thatched roof.

Oh, and you do need to meet all residency requirements for the country you pick.

Clive Robinson • September 10, 2021 5:02 AM

@ Winter,

Strange. I was under the impression that Anti Money Laundering laws made cash payments over $10,000 impractical to impossible.

Not in the slightest, nor were they ever intended to be either[1].

What the legislation did was remove an old defence from the receiver of ANY single payment above the threshold be it cash or other payment method. As well as place upon the receiver a “Duty of notification” not a “Duty of care” or “Duty of investigation”[2] as it was dressed up to be…

The real purpose of the legislation was to make going after peoples assets way way easier.

A legal friend pointed this out to architects and related professionals at a meeting held by their proffessional body. They gave reasons as to why the legislation would pass and suggested the only solution was for the proffessionals to report EVERY transaction to the authorities automatically as “business policy” and effectively “swamp the authorities out” along with getting a signed indemnity. My friend pointed out that the legislation was a “knee jerk response” and had not been thought out and that of those behind it “Stupid is as Stupid does”.

The predictable result is that governments do not currently have the resources to investigate every report. So their “lets grab the assets” money making scheme can not realistically work against “Serious Organised Crime”[1] and make a profit, but… Reporting every transaction gives the proffessionals actually more legal protection than they previouslt had…

Such legislation is always a “Hot potato game” of “externalising” to the weakest person. The government does it to exterbalise cost, the proffessional responds to externalise risk, and you are left to pick it all up, unless you can find a way to pass it on.

[1] But then it was never intended for that any way unless the alledged crooks were terminally stupid. It was intended as a revenue raising scheme against the “middle classes” and a hammer for reducing legal costs by making the protection of an individuals “rights” to expensive to do (the age old abuse of power known as “rights stripping”).

[2] If you go to a lawyer or other proffessional, tucked into all that paperwork at the very begining is a waiver document where you sign an indemnity. If you don’t sign it, then they “don’t act” for you, but that does not stop them billing you for unspecified work so far carried out… So don’t be surprised if they appear to let it slide untill a very critical point for you, then use that to hold your feet to the fire.

SpaceLifeForm • September 10, 2021 3:33 PM

@ Winter, Clive

NYC and SARs

When crooked banks can overload FINCEN, then the intended SIGNAL can get lost in the NOISE.

The fallout of 20 years ago tomorrow.

hxtps://gonzobanker.com/2006/06/sars-epidemic/

According to a 2005 report issued by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General, 62% of all SARs sampled had data quality problems, citing the narrative sections of the SAR as “inadequate to convey necessary information.”

G(fincen report overload)

You should find a link to Federal Reserve warning about this problem in 2005. You will also find more recent articles.

And, please note and completely understand:

The Federal Reserve and the US Dept of Treasury are separate entities.

Ths fascists would love if you thought they were the same. In fact, in the late 90’s both domains actually pointed to the same website and same ip address. I discovered that and noted that was a lie. Later, they where split into two separate websites. It was a cool trick at the time, albeit a lie.

The real summer • September 10, 2021 5:20 PM

@Clive, Anders

A decent definition of the nature of Gain-of-Function research can be found at
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/gain-function-research-involving-potential-pandemic-pathogens

“The term gain-of-function (GOF) research describes a type of research that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent. Some scientists use the term broadly to refer to any such modification. However, not all research described as GOF entails the same level of risk. For example, research that involves the modification of bacteria to allow production of human insulin, or the altering of the genetic program of immune cells in CAR-T cell therapy to treat cancer generally would be considered low risk. The subset of GOF research that is anticipated to enhance the transmissibility and/or virulence of potential pandemic pathogens, which are likely to make them more dangerous to humans, has been the subject of substantial scrutiny and deliberation …”

In the context of sars-cov-2, Anders’ use of the phrase seems not unreasonable. It seems that the Biden administration has no appetite to investigate Dr Fauci’s funding decisions but I hope the history books will not be so forgiving.

Clive Robinson • September 10, 2021 7:00 PM

@ The real summer, Anders,

The subset of GOF research that is anticipated to enhance the transmissibility and/or virulence of potential pandemic pathogens, which are likely to make them more dangerous to humans, has been the subject of substantial scrutiny and deliberation …

The reason for the deliberation is the observer problem.

As I’m known to note,

1, Technology is agnostic to use.
2, It is the Directing mind that decides the use.
3, It is the Observer who decides if the use is good or bad.

The Directing mind and observer have very different view points.

As the Directing mind you can say one thing but keep your real intent secret. An observer has the problem of not knowing if there is any difference between what is said and the intent. Worse it is usually quite easy for a Directing mind to hide behind other minds.

Thus the intent of those carrying out the work may be good, but the intent of the paymaster may be different or bad.

Unless the intent brings forth a direct action it may never be known by others, so remain indeterminate or unknown. So an observer has nothing to see and may not even be aware of the intent.

For instance most of the research into biological weapons has been to find protection mechanisms such as vaccines, anti-virals, or other counter agent. The problem is you have to predict what others may do to make a weapon to come up with a counter agent.

That is you have to be proficient at all forms of attack to be proficient at defence.

You may claim with both honesty and integrity that your intent is defence, however I can take your research and use it for offence.

Such dilemmas are so much part of life that we frequently do not realise it, nor realise there is little or nothing that can be done to stop the advancment of all knowledge. So in turn there is little or nothing we can do to stop the information being used for harm.

The biggest problem of which is the “We are the good guys” / “for the common good” attitudes that excuses “Might is Right” thinking and behaviours that do oh so much wrong.

SpaceLifeForm • September 10, 2021 10:00 PM

@ Winter, Clive

SEC and FINCEN same page

Note SolarWinds.

hxtps://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-wide-ranging-solarwinds-probe-sparks-fear-corporate-america-2021-09-10/

The SEC is asking companies to turn over records into “any other” data breach or ransomware attack since October 2019 if they downloaded a bugged network-management software update from SolarWinds Corp (SWI.N), which delivers products used across corporate America, according to details of the letters shared with Reuters.

Clive Robinson • September 10, 2021 11:05 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

The SEC is asking companies to turn over records into “any other” data breach or ransomware attack…

In some respects this is not surprising, under the previous executive the SEC had a rather different agenda focus, to put it politely.

In theory the directors of a company are supposed to keep shareholders apraised of anything that might cause the shareholders investment risk to change.

Well it’s been fairly clear that the “material” clause has been abused by many directors not wanting share prices to change.

So realistically we can expect such previous lack of informing to cause some form of slap on the wrist.

The thing is some companies are going to have a tough time in the next couple of years as the various “bumps from sweaping things under the carpet, are cleaned out.

So this could be a start of some much needed “spring cleaning”.

SpaceLifeForm • September 10, 2021 11:17 PM

@ iFixit

Ban the Ray Tracing

This will be an interesting teardown.

Bet you there is a wire crossing thru the top of frame.

hxtps://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1436418508267536385

SpaceLifeForm • September 11, 2021 12:14 AM

@ Clive

Curious that the dog did not bark all of these nights?

I’m not surprised he was involved.

2021-01-20
hxtps://www.kentik.com/blog/the-mystery-of-as8003/

2021-10-07
hxtps://www.kentik.com/blog/wait-did-as8003-just-disappear/

SpaceLifeForm • September 11, 2021 12:41 AM

money laundering at casinos

It is transnational. If you want to have a good night, you have to know the correct night to be a player. You can get a piece of the action, just make sure you bet less than the other players. You can not be at a low minimum table, so you must have a good stake to start. The house will take most of their money, but you will win some to make the game look fair to observers. Did I mention night? Plan on playing about 8 hours until the sun rises.

hxtps://www.bclocalnews.com/news/former-b-c-lottery-director-says-hes-whistleblower-on-money-laundering-at-casinos/

Clive Robinson • September 11, 2021 5:38 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

The article gives a classic shabby prosecutors trick a little “sunlight”,

“Commission lawyer Patrick McGowan asked Alderson why the commission had to conduct an international “manhunt” to locate the former lottery official.

“I wasn’t exactly hiding in a cave in Afghanistan,” said Alderson. “I was in Australia, paying taxes.””

For those who are not Americans the “paying taxes” comment may not be clear[1].

So the prosecutor was trying to make the witness look guilty by claiming “manhunt” and implying the witness was trying to hide so acting suspiciously.

The witness instead “turned it” and made the prosecution look, lazy, dull and stupid in that order with just two words, nice 😉

[1] Put simply the US regards all current –and some former– US Citizens as US tax payers no matter where they are in the world. This means that the US IRS should know where you are, and so be able to fairly easily trace you for other reasons, something most Americans are aware of, and why it is used so often in US police dramas. You hear them talk about a suspect that is being hunted down not paying taxes so having disappeared / gone off the grid. Most other nations do not spy on their citizens who live and work abroad as a routine activity, thus generally don’t know where they are.

JonKnowsNothing • September 11, 2021 6:35 AM

@Clive, SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

re: US Citizens as US tax payers no matter where they are in the world. This means that the US IRS should know where you are, and so be able to fairly easily trace you for other reasons…

Except… they don’t have to officially acknowledge any US Citizen who is outside of the US Borders. This happens to renditioned folks or jurisdiction hopping transfers.

iirc(badly)(1)
There is a not-often used form that you can fill out when traveling outside the USA that is filed with the US State Department. This form gives permission for (named list) of people of officially inquire as to your whereabouts when traveling in approved listed countries.

If the traveling person is expected to be (here) but doesn’t show up or is expected to make contact and doesn’t, only the (named list) persons can request information from US State Department support to find out Where in the World is Carmine?

Sans this form all you will get is Dead Air. You won’t even get a proof-of-life without it.

The US State Department says the vast majority of no-contacts is intentional on the part of the missed person.

  1. I dunno if the form is still used. It used to be buried on the US State Department site and was only a few lines long. It might be the most important few lines you fill out. When an acquaintance filled out the form and submitted it, they were told “oh hardly anyone fills that thing out…”.

Sut Vachz • September 11, 2021 7:14 AM

@Clive Robinson

1, Technology is agnostic to use.
2, It is the Directing mind that decides the use.
3, It is the Observer who decides if the use is good or bad.

An item of technology is an artifact, i.e. artificial form, in which some suitable natural matter has been adapted towards a certain purpose. That purpose is only an efficiency for certain action, and does not include in itself ethical good. Only a knowing nature can have ethics. The adjective “agnostic” implies capacity to know, and so should be avoided for products of technology since these products are not knowers. The word “agnostic” itself should actually be deprecated in all contexts in any case, as it is a propaganda term created as part of Huxley’s rhetoric and not scientific.

Every directing mind is also an observer of the same thing it is directing, and every observer is a directing mind in regard to what it is observing. So the directing mind has made decisions in the same areas the observer is reflecting on, and the observer has directing in mind in pursuing its observations. Both are in actuality constrained by the ethical. But human agents are prone to errors in ethics and to disordered choices, so “thickly planted” laws hard won by centuries of experience are needed. While custom and usage allows for considerable latitude, there is a real ethical core that accompanies human nature and can never be dispensed with in reason, however much one may transgress it or attempt to explain it away or hide it.

Clive Robinson • September 11, 2021 8:33 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

Ban the Ray Tracing

With regards the FaceCrook-Ray Bans hookup[1] to make “Joe 90” style Spy Glasses. Whilst they appear like a neat tech idea, they’ve not realy had any success.

Way back a “life-blogger” who had had support structures surgically implanted to fix their camera system to, was if you remember seriously assulted by a MacDonald’s employee in Paris.

When Google came out with their “Glasses” they were called “G-asses” and those wearing them “Glass-holes”.

Others who have tried VR type systems to overlay on reality (hence AR) have effectively gone bankrupt despite their “cult status” in various communities[2].

Currently “society” appears opposed to having “Mobile CCTV” brought into what they feel should be “Private Spaces”. Even though such people have been the subject of SiFi and I think it was “Snow Crash” where the idea was pushed that such Augmented people would earn a living by being the equivalent of opportunistic “paparazzi”.

Will “social acceptance” come and such spectacles become common? I rather hope not, as most people here will know that like Amazon and the Ring products data being sold to law enforcment, there will always be a very unsavoury behind the scenes with the unscrupulous profiteering off of any person they can[3] in many horrible and frankly Orwellian ways.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/09/facebook-stories-social-media-firm-launches-ray-ban-smart-glasses

[2] Hackerday call her “hacker of note and dedicated amateur radio operator [Jeri Ellsworth (AI6TK)]” has/had a company (CastAR) making AR headsets that could overlay VR on reality,

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/33434/jeri-ellsworth-talks-castar-vr-and-why-valve-let-her-go/index.html

And it’s all kind of feet up,

https://theamphour.com/394-jeri-ellsworth-and-the-demise-of-castar/

Though I gather she is now doing “Rocket Science”, you just can not keep some people down 😉

[3] Amazon’s Ring is the largest civilian surveillance network,

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/18/amazon-ring-largest-civilian-surveillance-network-us

https://www.wired.com/story/ces-2020-amazon-defends-ring-police-partnerships/

Baldr • September 11, 2021 9:36 PM

@SpaceLifeForm
Ask your prof how network traffic can leak one bit at a time.

hey @SpaceLifeForm, while waiting for @tiny to come back with an answer, care to illuminate to us how this could happen?

Clive Robinson • September 11, 2021 11:25 PM

@ Baldr,

care to illuminate to us how this could happen?

There are actually many answers to “how network traffic can leak one bit at a time”, in part depending on how you interpret it…

So… Take the question at it’s most likely meaning 😉

At the lowest level consider an electrical circuit such as a battery, switch, and bulb.

Each time you turn the switch on the bulb illuminaits thus leaking the information that current is flowing in the wire.

You can replace the bulb with a coil of wire like that found in a relay. Each time the switch is closed the coil creates a large magnetic field, that pulls in the relay arm thus closing the relay contacts. But if you have a compass near by you will see the needle move. So leaking the fact that current is flowing. Just putting the compass next to the wires will cause the needle to deflect (but if it is enough for you to see is another matter).

So at any point in time you can see that the information on if current is “On or Off” (one bit) is leaked.

Nearly two centuries ago this flow or not of current down lengths of cable gave rise to the begining of the telegraph “network”, from which all our current electronic communications networks arose.

But what applies to current also applies to network packets. Each packet that is sent leaks atleast one bit of data (it has been sent). However the time it was sent leaks other bits of data, as does the packet length, and how many packets are sent. Which gives the basis of “Traffic Analysis”. Which alows meta-data about messages to be deduced without having to know the contents of the messages.

Whilst sounding simple, it’s a little bit harder in practice to detect the leaking meta-data, and drawing inferences from it can be problematical[1] but it can be and is done all the time.

[1] Think about it this way, you are standing in the street and see a first floor light come on behind a drawn blind in a house. Obviously some type of switch has been closed, is a reasonable conclusion. But does it mean somebody is in the room or not? Most would assume so but it is not always the case. Now consider the room is the “landing at the top of the stairs”, was the light turned on by somebody up there who wants to go down the stairs, or just move from one room to another? Or maybe they are downstairs wanting to climb the stairs. Of course there may be nobody there at all, it could be caused by “time switches” to make it look like somebody is home when they are not to deter burglars. If you stand there at the same time every day and the light comes on and off at the same time you might start to think it’s a timer… However in all these cases, like “Schrödinger’s cat in the box” you do not know for certain untill you look inside.

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