From a restaurant in Singapore. It’s not actually giant squid.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Read my blog posting guidelines here.
Jim • June 17, 2022 4:21 PM
Grilled Black Angus Beef with Spicy Thai BBQ. Thanks for the suggestion.
anonymous • June 17, 2022 4:23 PM
“39,260 people have texted the squid facts hotline. That’s a LOT of people. For context, that’s 1500 more than the number of seats at Fenway Park.”
@ https://twitter.com/SarahMackAttack/status/1537186329884299264
ref → Friday Squid Blogging: Squidmobile (May 13, 2022)
@ https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/05/friday-squid-blogging-squidmobile.html
vas pup • June 17, 2022 4:43 PM
US tech giant Qualcomm acquires Israel’s Cellwize for around $350 million
“Cellwize specializes in 5G mobile network automation and management. Its software, including its flagship CHIME platform, allows mobile operators to automatically launch 5G networks with very little manual intervention.”
vas pup • June 17, 2022 4:59 PM
US defense contractor said in talks to take over controversial NSO surveillance tech
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-defense-contractor-said-in-talks-to-take-over-controversial-nso-surveillance-tech/
“Sale to L3Harris would need US, Israeli approval; report says deal would drastically cut Pegasus spyware client list; expert fears US police will use tech, threatening freedoms.
NSO’s flagship spyware, Pegasus, is considered one of the most powerful cyber-surveillance tools available on the market, giving operators the ability to effectively take full control of a target’s phone, download all data from the device and activate its camera or microphone without the user knowing.
An individual familiar with the talks told the outlets that if a deal were to be inked, the list of approved clients for the technology would be dramatically curtailed and would probably only include the so-called “five eyes” alliance — the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.”
Read article for more details.
SpaceLifeForm • June 17, 2022 9:52 PM
@ vas pup
The AI is strong.
The SIM is strong.
Believe me on this.
How’s that for synchronicity: I live in Singapore a few hundred meters from this Giant Squid restaurant, and have eaten there several times. Unfortunately, it’s thoroughly mediocre shopping mall Thai, and I heartily recommend “Un-Yang-Kor-Dai” on South Bridge Rd instead.
Ted • June 18, 2022 6:25 AM
@anonymous, JP
Squid facts, restaurants
Did you know this already?
I’m not sure- some deep sea cephalopods would have a lot of ammonia in them (giant squid included) and that would NOT be worth trying. I’d start with shallow water jellyfish then figure out if these cephs use ammonia for bouyancy before eating 😂
https://twitter.com/sarahmackattack/status/1105072188049317890
Nick Levinson • June 18, 2022 8:40 AM
New ownership or management taking over a website or IT assets can present a security risk from partial downgrading of security and probably nothing can be done about it in advance except to move an asset out of the present ownership’s or management’s reach, and that often requires consent and has to be done early enough to be sure backups and archives don’t have it by transfer time, and that assurance may be unavailable.
Acquiring ownership of a journalistic organization risks unpublished material gathered by a journalist and held by the organization being acquired being misused, that is, used other than how the journalist or former owner intended, such as in revealing a confidential source of information.
Forbes is being largely acquired or has been, the new owner reportedly being associated with the Chinese Communist Party, and, in one view, the new owner responsible for applying the Party leadership’s decisions. Washington Examiner (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/patriotism-unity/the-chinese-communist-party-tries-to-gobble-up-forbes-media). (Another take reports it as essentially a financial decision: Yahoo (https://www.yahoo.com/video/hong-kong-spac-agrees-acquire-093000609.html), based on (access may require a subscription) South China Morning Post (https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3146538/hong-kong-spac-agrees-acquire-forbes-publisher-deal-values).)
Forbes publishes a list of the richest individuals, and that takes extensive research into people’s backgrounds. The research steps and methods could be of interest to a variety of owners, especially foreign owners. A past executive editor of National Enquirer, which digs into people’s backgrounds, once had a staff journalist who, he thought, according his memoir, may have been from the Soviet KGB. Surely, a reporting job at the Enquirer offers great training on American information gathering. A related concern was raised about secret Soviet ownership of a couple of small U.S. banks, implicating access to credit background files.
This risks blackmail and other bad acts.
Yet, there may be nothing that can reasonably be done. Maybe there shouldn’t be. Barring foreign ownership may not be good for an economy. First Amendment issues may apply, including to favor a potentially hostile nuclear-armed foreign owner’s associate, since the relevance is partly in the U.S.
Reporters at one major media organization reportedly own their own notes. That may be a partial solution. But it lowers a media organization’s value, so the presale organization may seek to acquire those notes, perhaps for free, before selling itself for a higher price. It could do so essentially for free by simply imposing new terms of employment as employment contracts expire and are open to renewal; a reporter could refuse the renewal terms and leave with the notes, but many, unaware of sale plans, wouldn’t want to leave.
As to why the Forbes purchase was made if not for financial reasons, I don’t know. Pushing a Chinese or party viewpoint would seem unlikely as a sole reaason, given the expense incurred. I don’t think a comparable motivation in buying United Press International by a religious organization has worked out so well if UPI’s buyer expected to retain the old UPI’s credibility. But sometimes people make bad purchases without helping the security issue here.
(URLs were accessed a few days ago and verified today.)
Clive Robinson • June 18, 2022 10:17 AM
@ Nick,
Re : The moon is a balloon of hot air.
Apparently the Washington Times as well is in the sphere of influance / shadow…
Being an almost ultra-conservative rag outlet, the self anointing messiah praises it for “bringing the word of god” and his message to US politicians and leaders…
Which I assume is some kind of “code speak” for “propaganda”.
Needless to say it’s on one or two watch lists at least, and is best avoided.
I suspect one or two of the more regular long term contributors can provide more insight.
There are good reasons why there should be clear division between church and state and they are of more importance these days than they have in the past.
Nick Levinson • June 18, 2022 10:46 AM
@Clive Robinson:
Much of your response (I think I’m the only Nick on this blog lately and I didn’t mention the moon or the Times) is off-point for this blog but if you’re saying that the Examiner is unreliable that doesn’t address the security issue my post raised or even what ties and commitments the buyer has. For the latter from a different source, including a reference to a few Senators (not a majority of the Senate) agreeing on a risk as well as a statement by the buyers agreeing on some degree of the risk, see The Hill https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3502954-senators-express-alarm-over-china-linked-bid-to-purchase-forbes/. If the foreign risk about Forbes is being exaggerated in the extreme, that wouldn’t affect the general case discussed in my post.
Separation of church and state wouldn’t block a church from acquiring a non-church-related news organization. A church can lawfully do so. The security issue in my post is unaffected by that.
JonKnowsNothing • June 18, 2022 4:06 PM
My Post got Composted in moderation. Is there hope for Springing it?
Clive Robinson • June 18, 2022 4:12 PM
@ Nick Levinson,
I didn’t mention the moon or the Times
Actually you did via,
I don’t think a comparable motivation in buying United Press International by a religious organization has worked out so well
As for “security” and “church and state”you have to ask why religious organisations and other nations political related organisations are buying up media outlets that cover the home of US politics in and around Washington?
Something tells me it is more for national representative “opinion shaping” and “policy projection” than it is for “profit” as the outlets all appear to reduce in size or shed staff once taken over.
Does it matter if we call such behaviours influencing, lobbying, or propaganda, the purpose is to influance and to achieve a desirable outcome for the investor. Be it an off shoot of a South Korean “cult” religion, the worlds largest online retailer, the Chinese Communist party or similar Russian state organisations or for that matter some US Political Party?
They all represent the security risks you out line and plenty more on top of that. The important thing as once noted,
“Before you read the papers, you first have to learn to read the papers”.
In the UK we have newspapers like the Sun from Rupert “the bear faced liar” Murdoch or the Dail Mail, rightly ridiculed and called “The Scum” and “Daily Fail” by many of the more discerning “readers”. Each is known for it’s owner induced editorial bias that is so obvious that only English High Court Judges could feign no knowledge that it is happening. The Daily Fail in particular is known for it’s “OMG you are all going to die” type highly fringe health and wellbeing stories, the Scum for sexualizing young teenage actresses and similar. But in both cases that is the “lead in” as they both share a very strong habit of pushing certain political mantras because the owners believe themselves to be “King Makers” or breakers and no slur or slight was to minor for them not to blow up often to the benifit of very fringe or minority organisations which have little or no actual representation or support, but did get funding from the likes of the US GOP backers and various Russian political organisations.
The fact some may mistakenly think “Oh just petty party politics” when in fact it is “intevention by agents of a foreign hostile power” says much about how insidious it all is and how it is getting worse, a lot worse.
Clive Robinson • June 18, 2022 5:10 PM
@ Anonymous, ALL,
With regards, the article and,
At Goodyear’s labs, the tyres are tested for 24 hours at a time, under different loads and speeds. That’s thousands of miles non-stop.
For that to be true it would need to be two thousand or more miles in 24hours or over 2000/24 = 83 and 1/3rd miles per hour which is kind of above most speed limits…
But more importantly,
“Special plastic spokes, support a thin, reinforced rubber tread. The spokes flex and contort as the car goes through its paces.”
What do they mean by “support”? To most that would mean “compression” not as in the case of pushbike and motorcycle wheels “tenssion”.
The difference is quite important, because with “compression” you get the problem of things getting “in the wheel” and stopping the “compression” working either effectively or at all so “the ride” would not just change suddenly if a stone lodged in, it would create a “lump” that would hit at the same frequency as the wheel rotates… Not to much of an issue for slower moving vehicles over rough ground… But for fast moving vehicles on smorh ground you get the issues of “standing waves” and “resonances” doing structural damage very very quickly.
History tells us about “hobby horses” with solid wheels and later “bone shakers” with solid rubber treds, it was the discovery of “vulcanisation” that enabled air filled tyres to happen.
The other problem is that tyres have to behave very differently when going around corners to when going on the straight. It’s not at all clear that the cantilever designs shown in the pictures in the article could do that adequately (essentially the tyre has to be able to “climb into” the corner to maintain the running line rather than slide out causing an uncontrolable loss of traction thus probable accident).
I don’t envy any engineer or materials scientist trying to solve just one or two of the very many issues, many of which are quite nonlinear in the responses needed.
Clive Robinson • June 18, 2022 5:38 PM
@ vas pup, ALL,
With regards,
“According to Electreon’s website, a system of copper coils is laid beneath the asphalt to transfer energy from the electricity grid…”
Oh dear, not this idea again (we once had it with certain types of non conductive track autonomous busses and light railways).
The energy transfer is in the “magnetic field” which is effectively “volumetric” as opppsed to the electrical field that is effectively “surface area”. Thus the coupling efficiency drops off at 1/(r^3) rather than 1/(r^2).
Which means the coils in the road and in the vehicles have to be very very close to each other. Thus requiring high precision and a high degree of not just road and vehicle maintainence, but also ensuring no “Foreign Object Damage”(FOD) happens. In effect each vehicle would have to “sweep the road” thus increasing inefficiency through friction, air resistance etc.
And that’s all before you start talking about the “sit-down effect” caused by aerodynamics sucking the vehicle down onto the road as velocity increases…
I can see this being “the new solar road” idea, it will vampire up lots and lots of speculators money for development, making a few marketing types wealthy. But in reality just act as an environmental disaster filling scrap yards with what are realy “non-recyclable” components as the recovery cost will be close to or excead the market value…
Then of course is the “health hazzard” question, humans have not lived in the sort of magnetic field strengths we are talking about, nor at the frequencies that are most likely to be effective.
What we do know from NMRI is that you can “flip the OH molecules” which is not to disimilar to the effct you get using non-ionising microwave radiation we use for “cooking meat in seconds”… I can already see some fun news headlines over that possibility (irrespective of if true or not it will get published think of it as the next “5G Scare” just off stage right in the wings “junker cooker” being just one).
Nick Levinson • June 18, 2022 5:48 PM
@Clive Robinson & @Anonymous:
@Clive Robinson:
Okay, sort of; “moon” is a stretch but Times is not there at all. And I think the newspaper was the Church’s creation from the beginning, unlike UPI, which already had a substantial history and journalistic credibility before the acquisition. I don’t hear of any news media (except presumably the Church’s own) crediting news reports to the UPI anymore, whereas they do to the Associated Press. That media acquisition is for propaganda value does not require size or staff reductions; the reductions presumably are the result of a mission (propaganda) that is inadequately supported by sales. One report from a biased source that may well be wrong is that a daily U.S. newspaper reflecting China’s view gets most of its money from Beijing and not from circulation or ad sales. Its front page above the fold typically tells me what a reasonable person Xi Jinping is and how the world would benefit from China’s vision (both in their view), but the inside (of one or two issues I’ve had my hands on) is more journalistic, although not heavy or groundbreaking. I suspect many leaders around the world find out how easy it is to publish and sell a newspaper or magazine in the U.S. and figure persuading us only needs front-page baby English plus a cute story about a cat and we’ll flip our allegiance half-way there, and it never seems to work out to be so rosy for them (e.g., Soviet Life, in full color), although the U.S. printers and newsstand owners may do okay. The foreign propagandists maybe could be pushing bomb buttons, so maybe we should encourage them to propagandize to their heart’s content. And if they ever create good content, about cats or politics, good for them. (Should they wish to try serious journalism about the U.S., they could benefit by studying the journalistic experience of Al Jazeera America.) But it’s hard to imagine that they don’t project profit in their preliminary planning; they may have heard that U.S. streets are paved with gold and if someone wants to persuade their boss to adopt their pet project throwing slim-chance benefits (profit, legacy, etc.) into their prospectus is a popular tactic. It’s when profits fail to materialize that someone cuts size and staff, and that’s often after start-up or acquisition. While the White House, mainly under Republicans, complains about press coverage, it does not try to issue its own daily newspaper to newsstands or set up a TV channel of its own, even before there was Fox. And the two political parties don’t either. That suggests they have private sobriety behind their public hysterics.
Rupert Murdoch blesses the U.S. with the New York Post and it is not exactly a leader in journalistic ethics. Also, as far as I know, it has been losing tens of millions of dollars annually for decades. But the printer and newsstands likely do okay. And Murdoch gets political value. He also has The Wall Street Journal, which retains journalistic credibility. And he used to have The Village Voice, a very liberal paper, and he’d give direction, but the editor of the time said he offered to resign a few times and Murdoch declined to accept. The pre-Murdoch Post was liberal but, I think, had begun losing money when he came along. I think major newspapers tend to be more partisan in the U.K. than in the U.S., although U.S. papers may lean liberal or conservative, if not so explicitly Democratic or Republican.
I don’t know much about the U.K. Supreme Court, but my guess is that the judges’ not knowing of his failings is on the surface and due to a legal analysis; in the U.S. it may be legally subject to lawsuit to say aloud that someone commits wrongdoing even if the wrong is lawful; and I understand it’s even more often difficult in the U.K.
What is getting worse seems to be online and undercover (open print and radio may be brazen but maybe not worse over time), but much of that is our domestic fault: Russia is not obliged to administer our K-12 schools to teach us reading for comprehension and I doubt Russia would care to allocate a budget to so behemothic a project, even if they can get cash back from their leaders’ corruption. If we want better-quality high school diplomas, that’s our job at all levels.
@Clive Robinson & @Anonymous:
About tires:
Syntactically, 1,000.0001 also gets a plural (at least in any standard U.S. English), so the speed could be 42-plus mph. But running over most speed limits at 83-plus for 24 is not unreasonable testing, assuming they test at several speeds.
I’ll accept that they can’t go flat but they couldn’t be invulnerable. They may just be a better idea for some market niches.
I don’t see an IT security risk with the tires that didn’t exist with inflatables.
lurker • June 18, 2022 6:48 PM
@CliveRobinson, @vas pup
Which means the coils in the road and in the vehicles have to be very very close to each other.
or the frequency has to be a lot higher than 50hz, which adds to electronic smog polluting the atmosphere.
lurker • June 18, 2022 7:41 PM
@Clive, vas
Technical details are not floating near the surface, but there is a low res. picture of coils being laid in a road in Gotland at [smartroadgotland.com]
some fleeting glimpses of various coils at [youtube.com/watch?v=pyy5b7NVaZI]
and the revelation for patent search junkies that electreon has 19 patents on the technology [sae.org/news/2022/06/wireless-road-charging-for-evs]
It looks like pedestrian safety will be assured(!) by the control system detecting vehicle presence and tranmitting only while a suitable (paid up) receiver vehicle is over the coil. I’m guessing from coil size, the frequency is in VHF range.
lurker • June 19, 2022 3:14 PM
There may be an infosec issue as well with these powered roads, which is not discussed in the material I have yet found. Either the road operator makes the power available to all comers, paid out of a uniform toll (or general taxation) as an incentive to switch to EVs. Or normal commercial imperatives demand the users of the energy provide a ROI, identifying, authenticating those who have paid. How long before the free riders crack it?
SpaceLifeForm • June 20, 2022 1:59 AM
Crypto Signing Implementation problem
Either you do not accept a PublicKey as input in the first place, or you recompute the Publickey from the PrivateKey and Verify before Signing.
So, either way, the code has to regenerate the PublicKey from the PrivateKey.
This problem is a really stupid Go-Faster stripe. Absolutely Brain Dead.
hxtps://teddit.net/r/crypto/comments/vfl2se/initial_impact_report_about_this_weeks_eddsa/
Last week MystenLabs crypto research revealed a list of 26 Ed25519 libraries that could expose the private key if the signing function was misused either accidentally or on purpose. As of today and thanks to community contribution, this list currently includes 40 libraries from almost every programming language, some of them very popular with 100+ Github stars.
TL;DR the report revealed that the signing api of many ed25519 libs (some of them very popular) unfortunately expects a public key as input. An attacker may extract the private key by requesting two different signatures for the same message and private key, but on purpose for a different public key. Applications should not expose this api publicly and should refactor it to protect devs against accidental api misuse.
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2022 3:57 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Re : “Crypto” Signing Implementation problem.
It should be noted that,
1, It’s a general problem of PubKey signing usage, and not specific to Ed25519.
2, It’s not a new problem it’s been known about for a decade or so (first mebtioned with RSA if brain is remembering that well on a Monday Mid Summer morn).
3, As with AES and the NSA, we realy should realise that using cryptographic code libraries even from alledged experts without knowing what you are doing carries unlimited risk.
4, The old “always check the inputs” rule still holds true[1].
5, People should stop pushing error and omission checks to the left / upstream (likewise ignoring exceptions).
And no doubt a few other things that will come to light “real soon now”.
Mind you there is a funny side to this “OMG my crypto wallet is broken” story, people are already using it to say that the blockchain is doing the world a service…
Talk about trying to turn vinegar into lemonade…
[1] Just one of the meanings of,
“Feel the ‘source’ Luke”
JonKnowsNothing • June 21, 2022 9:10 AM
@Clive, @All
re: UK Post Office Scandal rolling along nicely
For those who have followed the 30yr scandal of the UK Post Office Annex claims that the Annex Sub-Postmasters were stealing funds when it was known at the time that it was a flaw in the Horizon Accounting Software, and that many of these people were criminally prosecuted and imprisoned, fined, paid funds out of their pocket for UK PO claimed shortages when no shortage existed…
A compensation fund was set up to repay the victims of the UK Government and fraudulent Fujitsu Accounting Software claims.
The filing period for compensation was during Lockdown-1 and open for 3 months. The victims where not notified that they could apply for compensation. +170 additional claims have been filed after the deadline.
An important aside for the USA on deadlines.
A recent SCOTUS ruling on whether a disabled veteran who’s application had been denied and their case closed could reopen the case for a new review.
The veteran’s request for a new review was due to a later change in the law and criteria for the conditions, under which the veteran had been denied. The changes were more favorable to the veteran.
SCOTUS ruled NO.
The veteran is not able to reapply or request review because there is a deadline that had past. SCOTUS ruled that the changes after the deadline are irrelevant. Only the hard fixed deadline was of import. Since the veteran’s case had been closed and the deadlines past, the veteran will not be able to apply or be reconsidered.
===
Search Terms
Historic Shortfall Scheme (HSS)
2020
3 months to apply
… court rejects veteran’s attempt to reopen a benefits denial based on legal error
ht tps://www. scotusblog.c om/2022/06/in-far-cry-from-usual-textualism-court-rejects-veterans-attempt-to-reopen-a-benefits-denial-based-on-legal-error/
(url lightly fractured)
SpaceLifeForm • June 21, 2022 7:02 PM
This movie has a lot of plotlines
Some keywords: oracle, bit leak, rsa, 25519, aes-ecb, design, mitm, password strength, Bleichenbacher
There are more. This would make a great movie.
The script is already written.
Producers and Directors: Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock.
They would love this script, because it is scary and bizzare, just up their alley.
hxtps://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/06/mega-says-it-cant-decrypt-your-files-new-poc-exploit-shows-otherwise/
hxtps://mega-awry.io/
Movie trailer: Encrypt your data BEFORE you store it in a cloud, and keep your keys to yourself.
SpaceLifeForm • June 21, 2022 9:20 PM
@ AlanS
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/01/cloning-google-titan-2fa-keys.html/#comment-406468
In short, you can clone a FIDO security key but as soon as one of the keys is used the clone is no longer a clone and the attempted cloning can be detected.
Does ‘can be’ mean ‘will be’?
SpaceLifeForm • June 22, 2022 1:51 AM
No mas. Please, just stop. This should be on The Onion.
This is insane.
hxtps://eaton-works.com/2022/06/20/hacking-into-the-worldwide-jacuzzi-smarttub-network/
SmartTub consists of two elements: a module inside the tub itself with cell data reception that can access/control tub functionality, and an Android/iPhone app.
SpaceLifeForm • June 22, 2022 3:44 AM
Re: Uvalde
As the coverup continues, there are questions that need to be asked.
Why did Arredondo not have his police radio?
Why did no one check if the door was unlocked or not?
How did Arredondo know that the shooter had an AR-15 if he never saw or engaged?
See this PD LANDLINE transcript, but note that Arredondo was using a cell phone. Read closely, and you will see why that is True.
hxtps://nitter.net/ShimonPro/status/1539258323073212417#m
hxtps://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/will-we-ever-know-truth-uvalde/
SpaceLifeForm • June 22, 2022 11:08 PM
Re: Uvalde
As I noted, there are questions.
Arredondo has now been put on administrative leave by the school district.
That should have happened immediately.
hxtps://www.axios.com/2022/06/22/uvalde-schools-police-leave-pete-arredondo
But he and his lawyer told the Tribune he was open to cooperating with investigations as long as he can see his previous transcripts first.
“That’s a fair thing to ask for before he has to then discuss it again because, as time goes by, all the information that he hears, it’s hard to keep straight,” Hyde said.
Especially needed when one can not remember their lies.
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2022 12:02 AM
@SpaceLifeForm
re: Transcripts before Interrogations
IANAL
Marcy Wheeler has often had to explain why someone needs to request transcripts of previous statements. It’s called a “Perjury Trap” and is a frequent tool of District Attorneys who’s jobs depend on finding people guilty whether or not any illegal activity took place.
Qu’on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j’y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Which in itself seems to be disputed: 6 lines or 2?
… qu’avec deux lignes de l’ecriture d’un homme on pouvoit faire le proces au plus innocent, parce qu’on pouvoit sur cette matiere ajuster si bien les affaires, que facilement on y pouvoit faire trouver ce qu’on voudroit.
In one of the recent cases MW tracked, a perjury trap was setup. Paraphrased it went something like this:
Q: Did you tell the AAA about this?
A: NoQ: Did you tell the BBB about this?
A: NoQ: Did you tell the CCC about this?
A: NoQ: Did you tell anyone about this?
A: No
Did you spot the trap? I needed the Jumbo Sized Marker ….
===
ht tps://en.wi kipedia.org/wiki/Perjury_trap
(url lightly fractured)
Winter • June 23, 2022 3:43 AM
@SLF
Arredondo has now been put on administrative leave by the school district.
That should have happened immediately.
This overall discussion devolves into scapegoating. The cause of the massacre in Uvalde was not the fact that someone made an error. Humans make errors, if you cannot handle that, your organization is failing. These disasters are the end point of long sequences of failures and mishaps.
The whole sequence starts with the murderer having mental problems and obtaining a weapon designed for massacres. Starting even from before that point, there were many crucial points where the community (or society) could have intervened and stopped the massacre from happening. Just putting all the blame on a single scapegoat is hypocritical and counter productive, but extremely common.
As people with severe mental problems are universal for human society, but school massacres are fairly typical for the USA specifically, society in the USA has to carry a lot of the responsibility for this disaster. Especially, their unwillingness to even contemplate, let alone implement, effective (evidence based) policies to prevent them.
Anyone pointing fingers should reflect on where her or his actions and votes have contributed to this disaster, be it fighting for lower taxes, being tough on crime, or whatever else is involved here that would have prevented this disaster.
SpaceLifeForm • June 23, 2022 4:50 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing
re: Transcripts before Interrogations
Did you spot the trap? I needed the Jumbo Sized Marker
Four Seasons Dripping Rudy Hair Dye can work for markup.
The trap is clear if there is known evidence otherwise, such as previous grand jury or court testimony, emails, texts, or audio recordings.
But, in this instance case of Uvalde and Arredondo, it may not be in play yet because no one has been charged with anything. That I am aware of.
So, I would not put the Perjury Trap in front of the Evidence Horse. Yet.
But, it sure looks like there are some trying to kill the horse.
And there are quite a few being charged in the Court of Public Opinion.
Wait until most of the public learns that Arredondo claimed that he and another 18 police officers were ‘surrounded’.
Clive Robinson • June 23, 2022 5:28 AM
@ Winter,
The whole sequence starts with the murderer having mental problems and obtaining a weapon designed for massacres.
Arguably it started befor “having mental problems”
As you and I both know, mental problems can be innate or induced by environmental considerations (effectively a residual survival mechanism process that is arguably nolonger of use in a protected modern society). Which is part of the long ongoing “Nature -v- Nurture” argument.
This is entirely seperate to considerations of if the problems are transitory or correctable in various ways.
So perhaps people should start by investigating if the mental problems were induced and if so why.
But again as you and I both know, this will not happen because it will throw up all sorts of issues “the powers thay be” and their backers do not want brought out into the sun light. As their future plans are very much predicated on keeping such sad and very probably easily avoided events reoccuring thus acting as enablers for changes they want to happen that only benifit them.
SpaceLifeForm • June 23, 2022 5:59 AM
Stellar Irony
So, a grass fire, due to global warming and climate change, leads to not being able to monitor the Sun. Probably for a few more days.
hxtps://spaceweather.com/index.html
Note: Daily sun images are temporarily out of date because of a power outage at Stanford University where SDO images are processed.
hxtps://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Stanford-power-outage-PG-E-says-it-can-t-get-17258565.php
Winter • June 23, 2022 6:13 AM
@Clive
This is entirely seperate to considerations of if the problems are transitory or correctable in various ways.
What US politicians dare to raise the question of Universal (mental) Healthcare?
Clive Robinson • June 23, 2022 6:53 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Re : Stellar Irony
This is not the first time this has happened…
And contrary to what you might have been fed by PR,
So, a grass fire, due to global warming and climate change,
Are not the real cause at all…
Those who have followed PG&E through various tricks by managment seniors to gain unwaranted self enrichment by creating artificial profits by failing to carry out,
1, sensible new work
2, upgrading of existing not sensible work,
3, failing to maintain to an adiquate standard any infrastructure
Thus cause significant harm to others by way of fire etc, who then used the Courts to attempt to gain some measure of recompense for the losses caused by PG&E senior managment. That the managment dodged by invoking “Chapter 11 Protection” to avoid paying recompense…
Have seen the “Stellar Irony” before.
Worse PG&E managment will no doubt continue to maintain their real position behind “PR”, and avoid further legal issues by cutting power to their customers at little or no notice based on the vague possability that a gentle breeze might airse thus causing their continuing “failure to adequately maintain” into more fires/damage thus court cases…
Such are the tricks that PG&E sebior managment are alowed to get away with to their own significant enrichment… No doubt neighbouring Texas will cause similar woes as they have in the recent past with unfortunate consumers blaimed by not just highly neglegant managment, but the politicians the senior managment back and fund…
The loosers as always being the poor US voters who are given no option but to select from a crop of crooks.
And have blatently unfair terms and conditions pushed onto them by what is effectively a cartel.
Clive Robinson • June 23, 2022 7:08 AM
@ Winter,
What US politicians dare to raise the question of Universal (mental) Healthcare?
What can I say…
Other than I thought it had been sufficiently proved that,
1, A healthy population benifits all
2, Unhealthy people are a risk to all
Or if others prefere,
3, Communicable pathogens have no respect for money, status, power, or the four mental diseases of narcissism, sadism, Machiavellism and socio/psychopathic behaviours.
As far as communicable pathogens are concerned, one potential host is as good as another potential host, and they will infect without fear or favour…
You might remember I’ve made this point a few times in the past, and certainly long before SARS-CoV-2 made it rather more obvious to even the dimist of whits…
But living in “The Dirty Man of Europe” I see that no matter how great the evidence political cognative bias is easy to not just panda too but, manipulate for great profit and kick backs…
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2022 7:30 AM
@SpaceLifeForm
re:The trap is clear…
But is it really? We are reading a paraphrased example. We can look back the list and see all the places perjury maybe alleged. It’s very different during questioning or interrogation. It’s really impossible if you are getting the GITMO Treatment, which is why 20+years on, there are still few trials underway and there are those still imprisoned with no charges ever made against them. With no charges, there’s no trials.
But during high stress questioning situation like in a court room, it’s easy to manufacture. People do not stop and think about every question asked. Both sides coach their witnesses in attempts to keep the desired narrative from being derailed. Getting the witness to derail the narrative is the job of the other side and using common human responses to repeat questions is one method of eliciting the desired response.
So in the example, a common response by the witness is “thinking” that the question relates to the previous questions. But it does not. It’s the same way parents “tune out” their children who keep asking “Are we there yet?” on an endless loop. We get on auto-pilot. No. No. No. No. And that’s one No too far.
The court of public opinion is not the same as a court of law, but anything you say can and will be used against you.
===
Search Terms
Reid technique
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2022 7:50 AM
@All
re: Is it a security failure or a user feature?
After a recent FF update (1), an annoying new feature was introduced. Every time you save a file, the “downloads panel” pops up, showing a listing of all the current downloads. This list can be cleared and is not related to what files are actually in the downloads area. It’s more like a recently downloaded listing that pops up on the screen.
There is a way to stop this panel from popping up via FF config changes (2).
Other than bloatware, or some pretend user assistance feature, I started to wonder about the value of having this list constantly popping up into visual view. It occurred to me that with many people now using video cameras + video screen capture + video conference options on a regular basis that this feature is actually a security failure.
It’s either an unintended failure exposing all the download files to any video capture system or it’s an intentional failure.
If it’s an intentional failure, the camera system doesn’t need to install any data collectors inside the system (malware, spyware etc), it just needs to capture any images as they cross the screen (hands free spyware).
Video cameras have long been subject to compromise and maybe the FF Display Downloads Panel is a handy add-on.
===
1) I really do not like to do updates because they
a) break my antique system
b) always have more, unneeded by me, bloatware
c) generally do not improve my “user experience” in any significant way
2) #browser.download.alwaysOpenPanel#
Leon Theremin • June 23, 2022 8:46 AM
Towards Contactless Silent Speech Recognition Based on Detection of Active and Visible Articulators Using IR-UWB Radar
Scientific paper about using infrared imaging (the rays can reach under the skin) to detect silent speech/inner speech.
Replicating this and using it to show people their inner speech can be stolen would bring awareness to Silicon Valley’s surveillance: they are stealing everybody’s inner speech to select how their ad algorithms work and also letting terrorists sponsored by them use this for theft and murder.
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2022 8:58 AM
Bank of Mom and Dad Pacifier Costs (the short version)
As the HIP-RIP-LOVID policies continue to expand the spread of SARS-CoV-2 throughout the global population and the increased reliance on using less than accurate Home Tests as a Public COVID Pacifier used for reducing concern, awareness and personal risks, the costs of the COVID-Pacifier are increasing. Many governments now limit access to tests and have plans to reduce “no cost” access for both testing and treatment (hospital and therapeutics) (5).
700,000 tests is one day’s result in California costing between $161M and $282M per day and $59B-$103B per year.
The annual rate of of $59B-$103B can be extrapolated to other states, countries and the global economy. Barring significant research breakthroughs, this cost will be on-going for the near-term and medium-term.
Under current neoliberal-necon-libertarian economic policies such expenditures will not be continued without some alternate form of revenue. Corporations manufacturing, distributing, administering these tests, may show positive impacts on their income statements and balance sheets but their counter balancing tax-revenue remittances will not be enough to offset the larger costs to the public.
If the goal is to maintain the economy by COVID-Pacifier, removing access and/or removing no-charge basis for access, will have a ripple effect in the economy. Some countries have already reduced access to testing either through complete removal of their previous No Charge position or by limiting the number of tests available per person with the result that fewer people undertake these tests. The test numbers decline at the expense of monitoring the spread of COVID within communities and the treatment of infections.
Within the context of the global inflation cycle currently underway, not too many families will be able to afford to pay $200-$400 extra per test, essentially rendering the population back to the early days of COVID prior to having tests, therapeutics and effective hospital treatments.
It might seem that governments are planning that their populations survive the increased prevalence of COVID-19 in the environment, the lack of improved therapeutics, the reduced monitoring of disease spread, along with all the costs of hospitalization that comes with serious-critical conditions. Since COVID infections continue to impact older groups, minority groups and lower economic strata groups more than others, it will be these groups that are most affected by government claw backs and support system collapse.
The Bank of Mom and Dad continues to provide a pathway for COVID Pacifier expense recovery.
Winter • June 23, 2022 9:23 AM
@Clive
1, A healthy population benifits all
2, Unhealthy people are a risk to all
But that means “public health” is a public good. Which is straight against everything the American Dream stands for: No Money, No Life.
The main objection to Universal Health Care I see from the USA is that no one wants to pay for other people’s health care costs. Which shows Americans somehow fail to see that the other people will be them at some point.
Winter • June 23, 2022 10:05 AM
@Leon Theremin
Replicating this and using it to show people their inner speech can be stolen
The end is not near, yet.
This system detect lip and jaw movements and uses machine learning to connect that to speech. Essentially, this is automated lip reading, but with a lot of gadgets thrown in that could make it useful for disabled people.
I am pretty sure the general population already knows about lip reading and has exaggerated ideas about its usefulness in general conversations.
Automated lip-reading by machines is a vibrant research field which indeed is worth our attention:
ht-tps://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9522117
Petre Peter • June 23, 2022 10:52 AM
I was deeply saddened by the following quote above the Teen Room inside Cambridge Public Library.
“Wise are they who protect the purity of their blood”
It reminds me that of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and his idea of blood and soil. In my opinion is not a good message for the teenagers of Cambridge MA.
Clive Robinson • June 23, 2022 10:53 AM
@ Winter, JonKnowsNothing,
Which shows Americans somehow fail to see that the other people will be them at some point.
This is especially true of retirment, pensions and the counter balance of immigration.
Look at it this way WMC,
1, 0-25 cost to parents/state
2, 25-50 earning buying house paying for children.
3, 50-75 Change to retired
4, 75-.. Retired increasing medical expenses.
In essence you can never earn enough to meet your costs unless inflation is high and your salary stays ahead.
Therefore you need two workforces, those that follow the above,
And those that start working around 16, and work untill they die in their sixties, where the government and others divert 30-50% of what they earn to cover the other workforces out of salary expenses.
For this to work with wage to salary disparity the first workforce needs to be less than one quater of the total workforce…
Which means further,
The first “salaried group” need to keep the number of their children small basically “replacment” or small growth so 2-3 on average.
The second “waged group” needs to start young and work untill dead or have a very very short pensioned retirment and no medical expenses or other state benifit. Further they need to have atleast twice the number of children that go direct to work from state education who again should die before or shortly after retirment. So 3-7 children
Or the second group needs to be augmented by immigrant labour brought in to do low waged work then be evicted before they become a cost on health care or pensions or other state provision. But need to be adding 3-5 non resident workers as replacment.
Otherwise the books won’t balance.
Which is perhaps why the average life expectancy in the US is dropping but for some it’s ~28 years longer…
Also why there are certain “race susceptable” “life style diseases” that are highly prevelent yet too expensive to be addressed such as type II diabetes, kidney, and liver failure…
There are some nasty horror stories hidden away in health / pension / life “insurance tables”…
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2022 11:11 AM
@Winter, @Clive
re: The main objection to Universal Health Care I see from the USA is that no one wants to pay for other people’s health care costs.
There are several impediments to Universal Health Care in the USA as it is defined in other countries.
Our overall system has been managed by large corporations to provide healthcare for their workers. Over recent years economic changes have reduced the number of companies that provide healthcare but our main source is Employer Provided.
In most economies there are cyclical rhythms for the employment cycle based on Age and Business Cycles. 18-65yo or now 14-70yo are working years. During these years people may have Employer Provided Health Insurance. However as the Gig Economy aka Day Worker aka Shape-Up employment options are dominating the workplace, many workers do not have Health Insurance because they are classified as “not employees”.
For the Tech Industry, most will no longer engage self-employed-contractors. They hire from an “Agency” that takes on the tech person as an “employee” and then hires out that person to the Business. The agency gets the majority of the fee and the contractor gets a fraction. During this arrangement the contractor may have benefits from the Agency but not any from the Business. Once the Business contract ends, the person is cut loose. Having a follow on contract is the responsibility of the contractor and the Agency makes few attempts to find another slot. For H1B tech workers who are shackled to One Employer for the Duration and while their Visa Application is under review, any misstep can reset the entire program and may require them to leave the country.
What makes it to the MSM reports are the Morality Plays undertaken to decide who is deserving of Health Care and who is not. The Play is ambiguous and contrarian and the same person can be viewed both ways and still not qualify for any program. Yet they end up in the County Emergency Rooms just the same, at a higher cost and with continuously recycled health conditions.
In the USA the Counties within the States are responsible for the Health Care for the people in that county. The Federal and Employer provide Health Care are INSURANCE repayment programs and they do not provide the direct care. The Counties are responsible for this. One can look at the map of the USA and by county (CDC and State Maps) to visually see how well that works. In poor countries they have less funds to provide health care and this shows up on the maps. In wealthy counties people have better access and outcomes. (Health Equity Metric)
So the issue is not really that “people do not want to pay for others”, many people do not really understand how their own health care is funded. It’s ALL paid for. Sometimes you pay more in INSURANCE premiums and sometimes you pay more for SERVICES provided and sometimes you pay more in Property Taxes and sometimes you pay more in Sales Taxes.
Sometimes the money goes to corporations and W$$ and sometimes it goes in the pockets of health care workers and support systems and sometimes it goes into the State General Fund.
It’s all paid for.
===
1) Losing coverage has serious implications for getting a future health care INSURANCE plan. Partial overlap by a program called COBRA.
Winter • June 23, 2022 12:31 PM
@Jon
So the issue is not really that “people do not want to pay for others”, many people do not really understand how their own health care is funded.
“Obamacare” was solving this in the same way other countries did: A compulsory insurance at a fixed price with free choice of provider. It was sabotaged for political reasons.
With compulsory insurance, a comprehensive care plan can be provided without the perverse selection problems of voluntary health care insurance. Such a plan benefits almost everyone at a (much) lower price than the current system in the USA.
Just as an example, I pay around 1500 euro/year for full, uncapped coverage that includes everything. My maximum out-of-pocket pay is ~500 euro/year. This is per adult. Children up to 18 are covered for free. Poor people get a social security payout to help pay the premiums.
In comparison, A Harvard student told me that their health care premiums are in the order of $30k, fully funded by Harvard.
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2022 2:27 PM
@Winter
re: compulsory insurance
This is not going to work anytime soon in the USA. It might go along OK in countries where the population is more inclined to “Follow The Leader” but it’s not going to sell here.
It is intertwined with how the 2 forks of Health Care Insurance are provided: Corporate Funded and Federal Funded with the latter trickling down to State Funded.
The global community of Compulsory Insurance has the same minefield as the Public-Private System in USA: Not All Plans are Equal.
And there’s the rub that’s not going to change what happens here.
Within Corporate Funded USA Health Care, each insurer has a smorgasbord of options. You get 1 from Column A, 2 from Column B and Options on Column C.
Things like: eye glasses, dental teeth cleaning (not dental work just 1,2,3x per year cleaning), hearing aids, medical supplies like canes, walkers and mobility devices, on the low end basic frames to high end scooters and street or outdoor wheel chairs and on wards towards really high end stuff.
Stuff that is outside of that is not covered. Rarely do people read the ultra fine print at the end of the “what you get” document to find the exclusions.
This whole variation is maintained by the MultiPayer Insurance Industry and is used and supported by corporations who found that having such variable plans was an enticement for high skilled workers and an additional leash to keep them from jumping ship. (1)
There are 2 types of MultiPayer offerings and these are important distinctions.
The plans are not the same. They have different costs and coverage and different exclusions.
When people here are confronted with “Compulsory Insurance Schemes”, it hits the dead idea bucket right away because all you need is 1 item that is in their current plan and is not included in the Compulsory Scheme. (cherry picking)
Currently, SCOTUS is about to rule on health care reproductive rights or lack of them and they just issued a ruling that (if I understand it correctly) allowed a health insurance company to pay a dialysis provider a lower sum for people in “end stage renal failure”. Nearly every policy has an exclusion to not pay for dialysis or support for that condition and in this case the insurer was able to force people to drop their insurance due to the Out Of Pocket Costs and shift them to State-Federal programs saving the insurer tons of loot.
===
1) Preexisting Condition Exclusion.
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2022 2:43 PM
@Winter, @Clive
fwiw: The long form of the Bank of Mom and Dad Pacifier post, had details of costs and expenditures that demonstrated the complexity of a single aspect of care. It’s somewhere in the moderation bucket.
I propose that the “held for moderation” phrase be changed to “your post has been captured by a black hole and your chance of having it reappear is Not Good”.
vas pup • June 23, 2022 4:55 PM
US-based Leonardo DRS acquires Israel’s RADA in major defense deal
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-based-leonardo-drs-acquires-israels-rada-in-major-defense-deal/
“RADA is based in Netanya and produces small-form tactical radars. It trades on the Nasdaq exchange with a market cap of around $543 million.
Leonardo DRS is a Virginia-based mid-tier defense technology firm owned by an Italian defense group.
==>The combined company will be better able to provide air defense, anti-drone technology and vehicle protection solutions, Leonardo DRS said.”
vas pup • June 23, 2022 5:02 PM
General Motors invests in Israeli vehicle inspection startup UVeye
US automaker to explore using company’s artificial intelligence-powered, camera-based platform at its dealerships
https://www.timesofisrael.com/general-motors-invests-in-israeli-vehicle-inspection-startup-uveye/
“UVeye says its drive-through systems can detect external and mechanical flaws in minutes, as well as identify modifications or foreign objects, both along the exterior of the vehicle and in the undercarriage. The system uses machine learning and sensor technologies to create an inspection device for the automotive and homeland security industries. The company says the scanning process can enhance the efficiency of vehicle inspections on assembly lines, at car dealerships and auctions, and at security checkpoints.”
Winter • June 23, 2022 5:03 PM
@Jon
It might go along OK in countries where the population is more inclined to “Follow The Leader” but it’s not going to sell here.
I am used to Americans insulting people who calculate they “must all hang together or they will surely hang separately”. Americans today seem to prefer to hang separately. They rather suffer than risk paying for someone else.
To give you an idea of a situation Americans know by heart but do not understand: The All American story of Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates
ht-tps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Brinker,_or_The_Silver_Skates
This story is situated in the Netherlands and contains a sub-story where a hero saves the country by plugging a hole in the dike with his finger and thus prevents a flood disaster that would have destroyed the city and surroundings.
What Americans do not seem to realize is that dikes are horrible expensive to build and maintain and require constant pumping of water out of the Lower lands just to keep your feet dry. The famous Dutch windmills were mostly used for pumping water over a dike.
Which means that the Netherlands could only exist if people paid up taxes to keep their lands free of water. And they were in it together, either all dry or all drowning (not like in St Louis, where the poor drowned and the rich were sitting dry).
What holds for water management holds for all public goods: Organizing them by public bodies is much more efficient and effective than “everyone for himself”.
The American Way is very visible in the absence of an understanding of Public Health and the way Health is, as Clive put it, a public good. Resulting in the US having the most expensive health care in the world with only mediocre quality, at best.
American Health Care combines the worst parts of all health care systems. So, how smart are these Americans who do not want to pay for other people’s (and their own) health care?
lurker • June 23, 2022 6:51 PM
@vas pup
Those of us old enough to have had a smallpox shot might feel a little smug. NZ govt at first suggested to MSM that they had access to “adequate” supplies of smallpox vaccine, but now seem to have modified that advice:
https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/news-items/ministry-continues-monitor-monkeypox-situation
SpaceLifeForm • June 23, 2022 6:55 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing
I propose that the “held for moderation” phrase be changed to “your post has been captured by a black hole and your chance of having it reappear is Not Good”.
The AI does not emit Hawking Radiation.
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2022 6:57 PM
@Winter
re: So, how smart are these Americans who do not want to pay for other people’s (and their own) health care?
I cannot attest to the IQ Level of the folks who designed the system but I can tell you that it is a sliding scale.
At the upper end is Wall Street. Generally considered “smart folks”. They figured out how to provided “some or limited” health care and rake in huge amounts of dollars for doing it.
At the bottom end are the people who cannot qualify for any support system. Federal Medicare starts at 65yo or for some 70yo. If you lose your job and company supplied health care at 55yo and you don’t have the funds to buy Individual Private Insurance or join a Limited Service Health Maintenance Organization, you have 10-15yrs of No Health Insurance (and no job=income).
Somewhere above that, are people who are so economically disadvantaged that they can never escape poverty. They may qualify under “Means Testing” for some programs like Medicaid which provides nearly equivalent services as Medicare but you have to be broke to get it.
The folks from Wall Street have zero interest in the ones at the bottom because they are so sick that it costs a fortune to treat them. Additionally, their circumstances, like lack of decent housing & food insecurity etc, mean their conditions just get worse.
The folks at the bottom are not able to pay into a system. Even one like yours in the Netherlands. They don’t have $1,500 to their name, because that would put them above the Means Tested Threshold Ceiling.
To solve the problem or design a system that works, you have to fully understand what does and does not work and why. It’s not code that solves the problem but analysis and design. That being said, one can see how well this aspect is working technically every day and in every post. There’s no long term or short term benefit to Wall Street to actually solve anything.
===
RL anecdote tl;dr
A friend on retirement, complained bitterly about free loaders on the US Medicare/Medicaid system.
Q: Don’t you get a Social Security Pension?
A: Yes of course!Q: Don’t you get Medicare too?
A: NO! That Soc…. (expletives deleted). I have NameBrandInsurance!Q: Isn’t your NameBrandInsurance billing Medicare?
A: NO! I don’t have Medicare! I can chose my own doctor! I don’t want that Obam … (expletives deleted) stuff!Q: You do realize that your NameBrandInsurance is the front end of Medicare? And that you can chose your own doctor as long as they are part of the NameBrandInsurance+Medicare Network of Providers?
Q: Wha… Wha… Your telling me, my NameBrandInsurance is that “SOCIAL…” stuff?
A: Yes.
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2022 7:13 PM
@lurker , @vas pup
re: Those of us old enough to have had a smallpox shot might feel a little smug…
iirc(badly)
The effectiveness of the Older Shot wore off long ago but no one bothered to tell us. It used to be required for overseas travel. Too inconvenient and someone has to pay for the injection.
We also have polio virus popping up again. Interesting virus polio. Almost wiped out but somethings just do not agree to go extinct.
Winter • June 24, 2022 12:01 AM
@Jon
The effectiveness of the Older Shot wore off long ago but no one bothered to tell us. It used to be required for overseas travel. Too inconvenient and someone has to pay for the injection.
Smallpox is extinct. There does not exist any smallpox anymore. So why give a vaccination against a disease that does not exist?
Protection against monkeypox is not full, indeed.
@Jon
We also have polio virus popping up again.
Polio in the wild is wholly the result of antivaxxers in a few poor countries. There are also some cases because the old vaccine had to be constructed from attenuated virus.
Winter • June 24, 2022 12:19 AM
@Jon
They don’t have $1,500 to their name, because that would put them above the Means Tested Threshold Ceiling.
In the Netherlands, and many other European countries, if you have no means, you get a social security check, and rent and health care support.
@Jon
A friend on retirement, complained bitterly about free loaders on the US Medicare/Medicaid system.
My point exactly. Your friend is not smart, irrespective of his/her IQ.
scotch tape • June 24, 2022 1:24 AM
Tails Linux 5.1.1 is out (2022-06-23): Fixes a high severity security issue!
This release fixes a high severity security issue in tor, that affects performance and possibly anonymity.
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2022 2:58 AM
@ Winter, JonKnowsNothing,
Polio in the wild is wholly the result of antivaxxers in a few poor countries. There are also some cases because the old vaccine had to be constructed from attenuated virus.
I guess that depends on your defibition of “antivaxxers”…
That is does it include supposed religious fundamentalists who for purely polotical reasons go around shooting and butchering medical aid volunteers in acts of terrorism?
In places where people actually want to be vaccinated because they can look around the village and see what polio has done and cobtinues to do to people.
What you call “the old vaccine’ is realy the new vaccine timeline wise as the oral vaccine came in back in 1962 for complicated financial and political reasons. But boild down to “a drop on a sugar cube” being easier than a shot in the arm (with risks like needle reuse from back in the 1950’s[1]).
In East London at the Becton Sewerage works (which has appeared in many TV programs[2] over the years) is the largest and possibly the oldest operational site in Europe and services something like a third of London’s population. For various reasons it includes the poorest, most short lived people who are often migrants from the most impoverished areas of Africa and west Asia.
For the past four months monitoring has shown that there is a polio “clade” mutated from the oral vacine in the East London area. However it has not come to the attention of the medical side yet.
The reason for this is probably that polio is actually mainly a gastro-intestinal disease so can go through a population without leaving the more devastating symptomps we have come to associate with it from history books.
Either way both polio and monkey pox are “notifiable diseases” in the UK so the authorities are obliged to take certain steps.
The fact that some Rupert the bear faced liar Murdoch alledged journalists have again blown things out of proportion for “political” reasons of their “lord and master” appears to have gone without comment yet again…
[1] It may come as a shock to many people but in quite a few parts of Africa, health care is so poor that “needle reuse” in fact even the likes of bandage reuse still goes on. Look at it this way the price of a small box of sticking plasters over the counter in the US or UK will feed a family of six to eight for a week…
[2] I’ve mentioned Becton on this blog in the past with connection to Victorian engineering and the great stink and other historical health security issues such as Dr John Snow’s water pump disablement in Soho that proved the case for waterborne pathogens.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckton_Sewage_Treatment_Works
https://www.immunology.org/john-snows-pump-1854
Historical lessons about “Common Goods” that quite a few could learn from both north and south of the equator in the supposed “new worlds”.
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2022 3:31 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing, Clive, ALL
re: held for moderation
Please state whether you were on mobile or not.
I have a theory.
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2022 3:51 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing
re: free loaders
Wait until they learn about the $170 per month they are kicking in to support the system that helps people.
Winter • June 24, 2022 4:27 AM
@lurker
Smallpox is alive and well, bottled in several labs. Remember you can convince WHO that lab escapes don’t happen, but samples keep turning up in the oddest places.
Indeed, that is a bio-weapons issue. Two countries want to keep samples, officially because they do not trust the others to have destroyed all of their samples. So, even if the WHO would like to destroy every single sample in the world, the USA and Russia would simply refuse.
However, the smallpox genome is known and the virus can be reconstructed from only the DNA sequence. Even if all the samples are destroyed, someone would still be able to create it again.
And the Monkeypox virus shows that the vaccine can still be of use without the actual smallpox virus.
Winter • June 24, 2022 4:48 AM
@Jon
To solve the problem or design a system that works, you have to fully understand what does and does not work and why. It’s not code that solves the problem but analysis and design.
Depending on how you count there are some 50+ countries with universal health care to study and see what works and why. The USA political discussion centers around a severe, and intentional, misrepresentation of the (well working) system of only a single country, Canada.
Dumb people learn from their mistakes, smart people learn from other peoples mistakes. As long as Americans refuse to look outside of their borders, they will have to repeat all the errors everybody else has ever made.
ht-tps://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-universal-health-care.html
ht-tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal_health_care
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2022 5:44 AM
@ ALL,
An electric vehicle has exited a third floor with two “test” persons in it and crashed into the ground killing both.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61919581
So far there is little information on what happened, though there had been outcry about the company claiming the vehicle was not to blaim…
The fact there was a “test area” of whole vehicles on a third floor is to be blunt a little odd for several reasons. One reason would suggest “security” of propriatory or R&D technology from competitors, but even so “third floor” of a tower block?
Winter • June 24, 2022 6:41 AM
@Clive
So far there is little information on what happened, though there had been outcry about the company claiming the vehicle was not to blaim…
I have seen an inexperienced driver having his foot accidentally slipping from brake to throttle and crashing a garage door. Could have happend here too.
But I think world+dog will combine “AI autonomous driver” + “Glass wall on third floor” = “Free drive Way”
I suspect the AI autonomous driver was not trained with data implying glass walls in front with a road 3 floors down.
Or, in summary, the AI probably does not recognize “glass walls”, “showrooms” with “a free view on the city”.
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2022 7:18 AM
@ Winter,
But I think world+dog will combine “AI autonomous driver”…
Whilst the company does do some “AI autonomous driver” work, I’ve not seen any claims other than it was an “Electric Vehicle” about the vehicle concerned…
I guess we are going to have to wait for the story to develope a bit.
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2022 7:27 AM
@ ALL,
It’s friday, and some of you will be thinking about going out for a drink with your co-workers this evening…
But think a little more carefully than this fellow in Japan who probably has the worst headache following a hangover of his life,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61921222
So,
Man + Bag + USB memory = headache
Because,
Man + alcohol = Passed out in street
Which in turn led to,
Man – (Bag + USB memory)
And the USB Memory had the records of much of the cities residents, and their personal information…
I guess we should not be surprised it is a world with 7billion people in it…
But as it’s Friday, perhaps a little reminder might help you not have such a monumental hangover headache…
JonKnowsNothing • June 24, 2022 7:30 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm , @ Clive, ALL
re: Moderated by a black hole …
Not mobile. Ancient Desktop with Ancient creaking hardware and Ancient OS.
fwiw: I tried the Clive-MultiPart Technique too which failed on part 1. Part 1 was 3 paragraphs of standard text (historical overview). The AI Parser must be drinking a nice white wine …
JonKnowsNothing • June 24, 2022 8:21 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm, @Clive, @Winter, @All
re: free loaders … Wait until they learn about the $170 per month they are kicking in to support the system…
It is surprising that so few people actually pay attention.
My HMO, a well known Health Maintenance Organization that specializes in some treatment, provided it doesn’t cost too much, has additional charges that people don’t calculate or pay attention too.
One of the “smart folks” in the business of healthcare fee extraction, found that separating the medical professional from the cost of service allowed the corporation to make more money. This system has also been expanded into veterinary pet care.
The MDs and RNs don’t know anything about the cost of procedures and their only clue is how difficult it is to get a referral. One might think that getting an ingrown toenail fixed would be an easy referral but not so. By reverse analysis on the difficulty of getting a referral to podiatry indicates there’s a lot of need for that service. So much so, that it is restricted. Too many users for a service hits a step-function of “value for money” (1).
Often times, people think that HMOs are “free of costs” but not true in the slightest.
Everyone on Medicare, at eligibility date, has to sign up for several options. The $170 or so comes right off the top of the pension. If you make the wrong choice, you can end up paying a higher rate forever and ever when you fix the mistake.
I pay another $90-100/month straight up membership fee. (~$300/month total)
I have co-pays as defined by Medicare reimbursement. Medicare is an Insurance Program not a Care Program. The amount of co-pay depends on the service and there are hard caps. $5-$250 depending on procedure.
There is a max-yearly out of pocket amount. Similar to what Winter described for her health care. Once you exceed that you don’t have the co-pays.
There’s a Catch22 for this and that is the cost of prescription drugs.
If you go generic, in theory it’s cheaper. However, in recent years Wall Street has discovered that generic drugs means no-competition and often times patent expiration. Buying up a generic drug manufacturer and jacking the prices has been a lucrative play. Not necessarily ethical but on Wall Street if it’s not illegal, ethics don’t matter much. So generics can be more expensive but the only option.
If you go name brand, in many cases like my HMO, they are not part of the Formulary (2). The Formulary is a list of all the drugs available to the medical group. If it’s not on the list you aren’t going to get it.
In the USA, we have an additional Gotcha often referred to as the Doughnut Hole (torus). For highly expensive drugs needed to treat devastating illnesses, you get the $N1 as part of the plan. The Hole is $N2 where nothing is covered. After you traverse the center $N3 is covered again. The size of the hole varies by classified illness.
When people actually total up all that they pay it’s quite a sum of money. Enough to fund huge hospital complexes, surgical centers, medical personal and administrators.
The key to the entire Health Care Insurance scheme is understanding how insurance programs work. This isn’t something commonly discussed.
Health Care in the USA is funded for people that WORK. If you are in the working years demographic, you are younger and productive. (3) You are also less likely to be sick and have not yet developed any significant health problems. It’s a percentages game. The big hump in the bell curve will be young workers. Young healthy workers don’t cost much because they do not use many health care services.
However, if you develop a serious condition and are unable to work, you lose your company provided healthcare and end up with nothing.
Very few young workers look at the bottom of their declarations pages to see what really happens if something goes pear shaped. (4)
What Winter misconstrues as “stupid” is not the real problem with getting Universal Health Care in the USA. It’s that Health Care is controlled by Employers. The fallout of people on either end of the bell curve isn’t the biggest hurdle. It’s the Employer Controlled part. (5)
Ripping Health Care away from Corporations is the big hurdle.
===
1) A wonderful opaque phrase used to deny services in several countries.
2) Formulary (pharmacy)
3) Clive had excellent post on this aspect
4) An example of a medical declaration limitation
* If you have a heart attack and are disabled before 65yo your insurance plan will cover your salary and health plan until age 65.
Unstated is what happens at 65 when the plan ends.
Next sub-condition exclusion* If your disability includes Mental Health issues, your insurance plan will cover your medical care only for 2 years.
So if you have a heart attack at 35, you get income support and health care for 30 years. If you have a heart attack and depression you get healthcare support only for 2 years.
There are other exclusions farther down. It’s all in the fine print.
5) The fight over the Gig Economy is a fight over health care and pension funding. Only employees get health care and pensions. If you are not an employee you get no health care now and no pension at 65yo-70yo.
JonKnowsNothing • June 24, 2022 8:28 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm , @ Clive, ALL
The black hole gravitational pull overwhelmed the electronic signals emanating from the SubmitButton again.
All text.
lurker • June 24, 2022 11:58 AM
@JonKnowsNothing, re “standard text (historical overview).”
History is in the eye of the beholder.
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2022 12:08 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing,
When people actually total up all that they pay it’s quite a sum of money. Enough to fund huge hospital complexes, surgical centers, medical personal and administrators.
And I have been told,
“Five times that to the emoloyer and finance industry”
Meaning the actual hospital complexes etc were just one sixth of the money comming in from peoples pockets etc…
Weird as it might appear, bigger US emoloyers have a hidden part of the “health care” that is you pay them to take out life insurance on you, and if you die they get the money not your estate or beneficiaries…
Apparently it shows around a 14% profit after other adminastrative costs…
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2022 12:24 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing,
A little “background” event, that could end up a portend,
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2022 4:51 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing, Clive, ALL
re: Moderated by a black hole
Other possible factors: Use of Preview. Cable. DSL. Dialup. ISP.
How ‘static’ is your ‘dynamic’ WAN IP?
I can not recall encountering this problem since I stopped doing Preview and instead just relying upon my eyeball parser and taking the time to do good code review.
Need more info to debug this.
As I said, I have a theory.
(25 mins)
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2022 5:42 PM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Re : I have a theory.
You mean a hypothesis based on limited observation 😉
I know this, because if you’d done sufficient “testing” we would have seen the evidence in 100 Comments :-S
Which @JonKnowsNothing, has observed me doing ={
So, onwards,
Re : In Parts.
@JonKnowsNothing, sorry to hear that your first part of 3 paragraphs did not post, I’m guessing the teeth got a little ground down.
You might have noticed a little while back I had a part 6a, 6b… etc along with parts 1 to 7.
I never did find out the exact word or phrase that the parser was barfing on, but I got it down to a single sentance, that I “thesaurused” three fairly innocuous words none of which were rude, crude or in anyway objectionable, and the “parser” let it pass…
So sometimes you have to be persistent.
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2022 7:58 PM
@ Clive, JonKnowsNothing, ALL
re: BHMT (Black Hole Moderation Theory)
You mean a hypothesis based on limited observation 😉
Exactly. I can only Observe when you point out that the problem occurred.
That requires that I can Observe your reported Observation.
I can not Observe that which you wrote that went into the Black Hole.
I can only Observe the Hawking Radiation which is those complaining about the problem after the fact.
Spot the problem?
I know this, because if you’d done sufficient “testing” we would have seen the evidence in 100 Comments :-S
LOL
There is Evidence that BHMT is not just about Preview as you have clearly demonstrated. 😉
As I said, need more info to debug.
When anyone runs into this, they should try to report what happened. Preview or not? Mobile or not? Cable? DSL? Dialup? Does your WAN IP stay fairly static or not? Which ISP?
Need more info to debug.
(20 mins)
JonKnowsNothing • June 24, 2022 9:39 PM
@ SpaceLifeForm, @Clive, @ALL
@ SpaceLifeForm
re: BHMT (Black Hole Moderation Theory)
A post surprise happened. One of the BHMT posts escaped the event horizon:
ht tps://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/06/friday-squid-blogging-signature-steamed-giant-squid-with-thai-lime-sauce.html/#comment-406612
“It is surprising that so few people actually pay attention…”
I made 2 attempts with same post with time gap and reloaded browser, both got Held messages.
No preview
I dunno how stable anything is but I officially have FTTP: Fiber optics to the premises and inside the house to the router. Cat5 from router to connection ports.
ATT ISP
@Clive
re: Multipart posts
I attempted to use your method of post splitting when the full post got road rashed. P1 was text only. No odd characters. Just basic text format. I did attempt to rephrase something that I thought was triggering the filter but the rephrase was kicked too.I waited several days and tried P1 again. Same result. I made 2 or 3 attempts in total.
I decided to try the final part because I thought the summary information would get past the BHMod. I’m sorry I could not present all the work and all the data that went into the summary but c’est la vie.
I really haven’t any ideas why one post goes through and others do not.
I make mention of road rash only where I put effort into the topic and layout of presentation. If it’s not wanted I don’t want to be a poor guest of this blog.
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2022 11:14 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing, Clive, ALL
re: BHMT (Black Hole Moderation Theory)
One of the BHMT posts escaped the event horizon
That is your Observation. I Observed it within minutes. I think. 🙂
Gravitational Lensing could be in play.
I am certain that many here have Observed replies to comments (due to partial quoting) but did not Observe the original comment. Ring a bell?
Your information is extremely useful.
My theory is two decades old, btw. It is not specific to this site.
I was going to mention another factor, but for now, it is [Redacted].
SpaceLifeForm • June 25, 2022 4:38 AM
Hard Problem example
keywords: git, sha-1, sha-256
hxtps://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/898522/9cf50ee3f96f90c1/
Some really interesting comments.
P.S. I just stumbled upon this but it was not due to a rabbit hole. 😉
Clive Robinson • June 25, 2022 9:24 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing, SpaceLifeForm,
Things as I understand them,
BA.5 35% more infectious than BA.2
BA.4 20% nore infectious than BA.2
Not because either is particularly more infectious, just that they have unsuprisingly shifted out from underneath the likes of the mRNA vaccine skirt (high efficacy but narrow skirt so easy to evade). But also shifted enough so “natural immunity” is below what has been expected.
Is either 4 or 5 any more virulent?.. Well the jury is apparently still out. Spread in the US is known to be high, but very poor monitoring makes “official” figures not worth the paper they are printed out on. But hospital admissions are up by around 2% which should be ringing a few bells as it’s mid-summer, and of the few tests being carried out in the US 1 in 7 is positive which is more than double that of a short time ago…
South of the equator where they are in the middle of winter is not good BA.2 is rapidly being caught up by BA.5 but… They have very severe influenza A going through, which means we will almost certainly get it this commening winter in the North. Lot’s of people claim they get flu every year vut the reakity is few actually do, because you realy get pole-axed and it can take not just a few days but weeks to get better. I was young fit and stupid many years ago and got the flu and tried to “run it through” and got punished for my stupidity at the time by spending three weeks so low even sitting down hurt beyond imagination. Then a couple of years later Inf A came around and I ended up being so ill that even after six months just moving in the house was exhausting… So yeh when you realy get flu you know it, and Inf A,is not kind. The problem… In Australia due to two years of lockdown they’ve lost ground on natural immunity so they are,seeing people get hit harder than normal…
How that will translate into Northern Hemisphere Nov22-Apr23 season I’ve no idea, but getting booked in for my flu shot early might be wise…
As for a CoV-booster, they refused me one last Aug due to large blood clots in the heart… Hopefully this year I will be able to get a top up.
JonKnowsNothing • June 25, 2022 10:20 AM
@Clive Robinson, @ SpaceLifeForm, @All
re:
BA.5 35% more infectious than BA.2
BA.4 20% more infectious than BA.2
fwiw: Attempts at posting on this topic previously have hit road rash. I am still actively engaged.
BA.5 is going to be The One. There are 5 sub-lineages: BA.5.1-BA.5.5 and some additional sub-sub-lineages.
All the BA2 family (from which BA.5 is derived) have significant improvements int their antibody escape mechanism. Meaning existing medications don’t work so good.
We are essentially doing Ground Hog Day 2020 with the exception of the death rates. Death rates are down but many impediments are in place to track the correct number. The number is higher than reported.
The transmission rate in UK is 1.7M cases last week having positive test. As testing is also down (1) the truer rate is significantly higher.
Due to lag in reporting in the USA, and depending on which sites are checked, the overall average is RED RED RED EXTREME for which the official position is everything is under control because hospitals still have available beds.
A recent article in Der Spiegel contains a big load of waffle but the iconic statement is:
“In the Worst Case, It Could Take a Few More Winters”
German Virologist Christian Drosten
Keep your mask on, get a vax if you can, stay away from crowds, stay away from mass spreader events.
We all have to go out and risk our lives now, we are on our own. No one is coming to help. No one is going to save us. We have to save ourselves.
===
1) BHMod blocked details about testing.
2) ht tps://www.spiegel. de/international/world/german-virologist-christian-drosten-on-the-battle-against-covid-in-the-worst-case-it-could-take-a-few-more-winters-a-04e022dd-fc78-4917-8083-873d13359bd4
(url lightly fractured)
lurker • June 25, 2022 12:28 PM
@Clive Robinson, JonKnowsNothing
Influenza A plus other winter ailments have pushed some hospitals here over 99% occupancy for short perods. 7 day rolling average daily death rate from omicron (all variants) is not tailing off, holding at about 3/million, which is 15 times the road traffic death rate, but invisible to MSM and public because 2.8 of those 3 were aged over 65.
SpaceLifeForm • June 25, 2022 11:02 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing
We all have to go out and risk our lives now, we are on our own.
As Life has always been in Space, some Forms survive.
No one is coming to help. No one is going to save us.
If V shows up to save you, do not board the spaceship.
We have to save ourselves.
We could do better if we had a more functional society.
Alas, there are too many insane people, and storage is limited.
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
vas pup • June 17, 2022 4:14 PM
China launches high-tech aircraft carrier in naval milestone
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-launches-first-indigenous-aircraft-044540227.html
“BEIJING (AP) — Beijing launched a new-generation aircraft carrier Friday, the first such ship to be both designed and built in China, in a milestone as it seeks to extend the range and power of its navy.
DAVID RISING and KEN MORITSUGU
Thu, June 16, 2022, 11:45 PM
BEIJING (AP) — Beijing launched a new-generation aircraft carrier Friday, the first such ship to be both designed and built in China, in a milestone as it seeks to extend the range and power of its navy.
The Type 003 carrier christened Fujian left its drydock at a shipyard outside Shanghai in the morning and tied up at a nearby pier, state media reports said.
State broadcaster CCTV showed assembled navy personnel standing beneath the massive ship as water jets sprayed over its deck, multi-colored streamers flew and colorful smoke was released.
Equipped with the latest weaponry and aircraft-launch technology, the Type 003 ship’s capabilities are thought to rival those of Western carriers, as Beijing seeks to turn its navy, already the world’s largest, into a multi-carrier force.
Satellite imagery captured by Planet Labs PBC on Thursday and analyzed by The Associated Press showed the carrier in what appeared to be a fully flooded drydock at the Jiangnan Shipyard, near Shanghai, ready for launch. It was draped with red bunting, presumably in preparation for the launch ceremony.
“This is an important milestone for China’s military-industrial complex,” said Ridzwan Rahmat, a Singapore-based analyst with the defense intelligence company Janes.
“This shows that Chinese engineers are now able to indigenously manufacture the full suite of surface combatants associated with modern naval warfare, including corvettes, frigates, destroyers, amphibious assault ships, and now an aircraft carrier,” he said. “This ability to construct a very complex warship from the ground up will inevitably result in various spin-offs and benefits for the Chinese shipbuilding industry.”
Read the article for more details if interested.