Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • June 24, 2022 7:20 PM

@ ALL,

Not the sort of novelty ice cube you’d probably want unless you needed an accompliment to,

https://www.eater.com/drinks/2015/4/2/8336581/black-out-with-trendy-squid-ink-cocktails

Yes that is “Washington DC” home of the “Beltway Bandits” and not some place down a neon lit ally in the Far East…

Clive Robinson • June 26, 2022 3:11 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, lurker,

re: parser test insane code

You are being slightly tunnel visioned when you say,

I am pretty sure that the javascript does not come into play if you avoid Preview.

Firstly preview requires javascript so turning off javascript stops accidentally pressing preview in touch screen smart devices like mobile phones…

But… Secondly javascript does come into play but in other things and I’ve not dug into things to find them all out…

But one for example, submit a comment with neither the name field or check field filled in.

Which you get warned about depends on if you have javascript enabled or not.

I’m guessing because the check is done in one order in javascript and a different order on the server…

Clive Robinson • June 26, 2022 3:53 AM

@ ALL,

Re : Loosing your drive…

Whilst the man in Japan, has nursed a major headache, it could have been worse…

Take this bizarre example of a realy major loss following the loss of a USB drive from little while back,

https://www.zdnet.com/article/anonymous-hacker-exposed-after-dropping-usb-drive-while-throwing-molotov-cocktail/

Clive Robinson • June 26, 2022 8:05 PM

@ ALL,

Re : Fox News Tucker Carlson and AI come to life

It is interesting to note, that searching on the subject via DuckDuck predominantly brings up the loony right sites vascilating and hyperventalating in alternate breaths…

The story behind it, is a “breach of confidentiality” by 41-year-old “Google Engineer” Mr Blake Lemoine. Who is apparently a self confessed “software boffin”.

He has said he has had several conversations with Google’s “Language Model for Dialogue Applications”(LaMDA)” program and that he had concluded it was sentient. And comparable to a child, entering adolescence,

“If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,”

There are various bits of allegedly Google “Propriatory Information” and “Intellectual Property”(IP) Mr Lemoine has disclosed up on the Internet, and Google has suspended Mr Lemoine.

With regards to if the program is “sentient or not” I would err to the latter. For a couple of reasons,

1, There is no effective test for sentience.
2, It is incredably easy to be fooled by little more than a chat-bot with a well primed database or similar.

However, history shows that every few years, we get breathlessly told of some major advance in Hard AI and creating sentience. The problem is that I’ve yet to hear of one that gets even close.

In fact often when you look at “transcripts” it’s fairly easy to spot the human apart from the machine, simply because the human asks predictably formulaic questions.

In fact if you want to test an AI it’s probably best to ask it the sort of questions children ask their parents, that mostly patents can not answer. Such as,

“Why is the sky blue in the day and pink in the evening?”

Or,

“What colour are clouds at night?”

The track record so far suggests that the AI will either give “to much science with no analogies”[1] or just evade the question.

But I can fairly reliably state one thing…

“Because of a lack of understanding of sentience, we can not formulate reliable tests to demonstrate it, at best only it’s absence so far”.

[1] The way to answer “childrens questions” is not by logical deduction, induction, or abduction, but by inferance via analogies the child already understands. Like talking about milk diluted in a glass of water. AI’s that have done this in the past have invariably been “primed” thus asking a series of unrelated questions can find where there at gaps in the database of answers. Likewise asking questions based around analogies tends to throw AI’s

Clive Robinson • June 27, 2022 2:48 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

A fun bit of television history.

In the UK we used to have a magician /comedian called “Paul Daniels” who later married his assistant “the lovely Debbie MacGee”.

He got his TV break on a program called “The wheel tappers and shunnters club” which was a parody of a “Northern Man’s Working Club” (that were like “bingo halls” once a major form of entertainment for people). They used a live set just like a workingmans club, but only aired “selected highlights” on television.

Anyway Paul used to get more and more air time, than other performers, and some people used to wonder why, because although he was more entertaining than “ferret stuffers” and the like he was not thought to be “big name” material.

Anyway on watching it became clear he was “backwards” and “forwards” refrencing almost all the time.

This made it very dificult for the shows producers to just select his highlights, they had the choice of a few or none, and he had got just popular enough to avoid the none option. Eventually he got so good at getting extra air time that the production company gave him his own show…

I learned a lesson about what some call “weaving” from that, and well it’s a quite powerfull trick in the toolbox that I try to avoid using for obvious reasons.

Clive Robinson • June 27, 2022 10:06 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : It is not a typo.

There are several such things in life where “sounds like” but “not written like” and they appear at all levels, especially in jokes and story telling.

I suspect that the “Parroty Error” joke about “Pieces of Seven” and ASCII being sent over serial lines is still known to a few “grey-beards” who once might have been “blackbeards”.

Puns and similar are still considerd clever in some circles and anoying in others.

But then there are other things like,

“ghoti” == “fish”
“ghoti” == “pheti” == “phish” == “fish”

But also,

“ghoti” == “”

The latter being silent because of,

1, ‘gh’ as in through
2, ‘o’ as in people
3, ‘t’ as in ballet
4, ‘i’ as in business

And speaking of silent T’s, some people will remember the old put down of,

“Oh is that silent like the T in Harlow?”

The simple fact is there is no correct way to spell in English, and even Shakespeare could not make up his mind on how to spell his name. Hence the “English english” and “US english” spelling differences.

Thus spelling mistakes or alternate spellings can be used to make simple “codes”. But it’s not just spelling some words can be used or are used interchangeably as synonyms. Likewise punctuation and even the number of spaces in type setting fixed width print to get straight gutter margins[1].

Obviously they can all be used as “codes” but also they can be used like “serial numbers” on confidential documents as well as giving “deniability”.

If I produce say four printed documents I can use different spaces, spellings or words in each, but if you read the documents your mind would “read them the same”. But a photocopier or camera would not. The additional problem these days is the myriad of similar looking glyphs with very different binary codes[2]

Even re-typing a document would is different words are used pull the hidden serial number across.

So a “whistleblower” or “document leaker” can be traced by the serial number.

But if you were wise to this and got say three of the documents and using a light box or equivalent found the changes in spacing, spelling and words, and removed the serial numbers, you in effect create a new fifth document… Thus the person who originated the document can claim correctly that it is not “the document” and that “it is a forgery”.

I am aware of a UK University giving enployees two apparently the same “employment contracts” to sign and letting the employee “keep one” for their records. However the trick was the HR person would take “both” to “check over” and would do it infront of the “new hire” however they would then hand one back to the employee. Liked “marked cards” in a poker game, the HR person would know which to hand back by a creased corner or the angle of the staple or some such on the one HR handed back to the employee that was not the good one.

Being a suspicious type I had not just read through the contracts but “light boxed” them so knew what was going on… As did my legal representative. So I took “opposit” or “counter” measures which I won’t go into for obvious reasons.

But lets just say I’ve rather more than my usually stated reasons for saying,

“PAPER, Paper, NEVER data.”

[1] The word “gutter” in printing is a little ambiguous. It referes to the blank space at the left and right side of a block of printing on a page. If you just print out seperated pages then the gutter width beyween the print block margin and the paper edge can be the same for the left and right margins. However if you are “binding” sheets together the gutter widths are different on the bound edge to the free edge. Thus the face of a page has the larger gutter on the left as seen, whilst the back of a page has it on the right of the page as seen. But… Also when you bind you bind in sheefs, the bound edge gutters in the middle of a sheef stack or fold are slightly larger than at the top or bottom of the sheef stack. This is so that the gutter width looks the same as you flick through a sheef bound book.

[2] Remember “True Type Fonts” and the like can with care be mixed together that is you can begin a capitalised word with a font in a point size one point bigger than the rest of the text. This will show up under a microscope but not otherwise. Likewise letters at ends of words that immediately have punctuation marks following them can be made a point size smaller. Also some type fonts are sufficiently similar that you can use say vowels from one typeface and consonants from another to give what if seen looks like a kerning effect, but is data wise very different.

Clive Robinson • June 28, 2022 4:54 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing, SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : 60 Minutes Killian documents dispute.

It needs to be noted that the documents were “beyond verifiable”.

There was at the time a quip about the documents having been put a half dozen or so times through a photocopier/fax. The implication being to remove all distinctive or distinguishing marks, but nobody at the time ever gave a reason why that might be, even though the “fax number” did later become relevant.

But there is a fun factoid involved…

There was a much earlier scandal which led to the Alger Hiss perjury appeal. Where the authenticity of documents became of relevance.

One expert witness actually hand built a “replica of a typewriter” to bring in evidence on the “fake typewriter hypothesis”.

That expert was Martin Tytell, who had his name linked in journalists minds with document authentication. Well you might note that “Tytell” is not a common surname, and being a proffessional forensic document examiner is not exactly a common proffession…

Thus if you search on “Killian documents” and “Tytell” you will find that they are linked as the son followed in his fathers footsteps, and broke new ground of his own.

But one last point, the “Killian documents” have never been proved to be “authentic” or “not authentic” and I suspect they won’t be in our life times if ever. There are several reasons, most importantly they are “not originals” and copying involving an “analog process” always introduces “noise”. But that misses the big point…

“The documents contain information and it’s the information that you are trying to authenticate not the document”

Thus “Forensic Document Examination”(FDE) proves nothing about the information even though people mistakenly think it does…

As I say from time to time,

“Information” is modulated or impressed on energy / matter”

It is not constrained by either as they are tangible and physical whilst information is intangible and not physical. Being physical creatures we need information in physical form to,

“Communicate, store, or process”

It’s something we realy should be getting to grips with, but won’t because to much “certainty” is falsely built on it. Therefore to much,

“Money, status, power, and ultimately control”

Depend on us not looking behind the curtain…

Clive Robinson • June 29, 2022 7:47 AM

@ ALL

Re : Ensuring real news

We hear a lot about “fake news” on the Internet, but that is not the only source as current events just outside of Europe are showing.

What many have failed to realise is that this century we’ve walked quite voluntarily into a trap, that we had got out of in the 20th Century.

The “in between years” of the two World Wars saw “Radio” become not just a military but commercial and consumer success. We went from a few very low frequency (LF/LW) “ground wave” limited range systems to continent spanning upper Medium Frequency (MF/MW) systems through with the improved understanding of the ionosphere to globe spanning High Frequency(HF/SW) systems.

WWII also say the development of “white, grey and black propaganda” by radio systems and “Aspidistra” has had one or three mentions on the blog, as have covert operative Numbers Stations.

But since the 1980’s the general public in the first and second world and quite a few thirdworld countries as well have been moved firstly up into “line of sight” VHF and UHF systems but microwave as well.

In this process we have lost “plurality of view capability” that is we are back to 18th Century news control by those in power around us.

The result has been increasing numbers of Globe Spanning Sort Wave (SW) broadcasters closing down.

One consequence of this as we have seen is “narative control”. The Internet has totaly failed to “route around censorship” and our radios, tvs, etc can not see more than maybe twenty miles, in some cases (London) not even “across town”.

We have lost that “plurality of view capability” and as has shocked so many with regards the events just outside of Europe, one man controls the message to millions with “fake news” and those millions actually believe it, and tens of thousands are being harmed and killed because of it.

This has been a bit of a wakeup call to more than one or two politicians, that now realise cuting back on the likes of “Voice of America” and “The BBC World Service” has been not just a crucial mistake but potentially a leathal one.

So belatedly they are bringing back Short Wave transmissions, which enable the “plurality of view capability” way across boarders and is extreamly difficult to block let alone stop.

But… How do you access this plurality of radio signals?

Well it used to be that buying a Short Wave Receiver was “easy” you just “popped into town” and purchased on at the Radio and TV store or the likes of “Radio Shack”. Such places nolonger exist.

You can go to Ham / Amateur Radio stores or a few specialist “scanner shops” but you first need to find them and you will also probably ending up parting with a months take home pay…

Currently we still have a functioning Internet and Intetnational Supply Chain for elrctronics, but that is not only getting less and less reliable, radio electronics in particular is getting scarce quite a bit faster.

But there is another issue, few consider. I have an extensive “radio” setup that covers the currently usable “DC to Daylight and beyond” spectrum. This is because I have both a professional and personal interest in many areas from astronomy through zone weather prediction, all of which means covering the used EM Spectrum. But we are talking enough “Lab grade” equipment to warm a house in even the coldest South England weather, and it would easily fill a large lorry to bursting point if you wwnted to pack it up and move it.

Those who have to “covertly listen” to Short Wave broadcasts need three things,

1, SSB, AM and FM demodulation
2, Small enough to hide in a pocket
3, With long battery life
4, With good stability
5, With good sensitivity
6, With tight selectivity

Whilst not mutually exclusive, such technology is either very expensive or a compromise.

It is known that the US “State Department” bought in “CountryComm SSB” radios “special order” pre packaged in special “25year on shelf” bags for Diplomatic missions and the like. And they obviously pay a price for this (north of $250)… But those CountryComm radios had stability and selectivity issues due to having a plastic case and no effective grounding.

If you have a hunt around you can find the likes of,

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZIphm82zBM

But if you are going to buy one I realy would consider doing it soon, whilst you still have the Internet and the ability to buy from it…

Don’t say you were not warned, when you can only get GOP-ping news beamed directly into your head 😉

[1] See the commercial / cosumer equivalent https://radiojayallen.com/tecsun-pl-365countycomm-gp-5ssb-amfmsw-radio-with-ssb/

And look up the price although it’s come down a lot you are still looking ~$150

Clive Robinson • June 29, 2022 1:41 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

Re : It is goofy

No it is at best annoying, ranging through painfull, and has a “ghostly element” to it.

The apparently random blockquote break was seen early on but apparentky could not be tracable at will.

Which suggests at first glance to be either a server intetnal mrmory bug, or a multiple input bug from the user, where the inputs are well spaced apart.

But as time has gone on I’ve wondered if the “multiple inputs” are from “multiple users”.

Look at it this way you put a message through the string of filters, do you know that each filter gets reset properly. That is are they truly “reentrant” or only partially so…

If the latter then the “bug” could be from N posts ago, some of which get dropped and cause annoyance, thus loss of regular posters. Others to “partition comments” into multiple parts.

As I mentioned a little while back, I had a comment get tossted for no apparent reason. So I broke it down into around three paragraph sized chunks. Most of which became just sibgle parts of 1-5 and 7…

But part 6 got broken down into subparts 6a, 6b etc. I found one inofensive sentance was causing the problem… However I used a synonym word swap on three words and it magically went through…

I still do not know if it was one of the words or the use of two or more of the words etc as they had all got through in the past…

Perhaps it was one of the words in combination with the words or some other artifact in a previous posters work, hanging around like the ghost of Xmas past, or at the feast…

Ad I’ve said before there are limits on what I will test because it leaves “droppings scattered” that other readers then have to wade through, which is not fair on them.

Clive Robinson • June 29, 2022 5:16 PM

@ Winter, JonKnowsNothing, ALL,

Some years ago I said –abd got sniped at– that “Represebtational Democracy” was not “Democracy” and why I said it.

Back then an artificial economic upturn was in progress…

Now we are plunging into the inevitable crash, people are not sniping (or not as much 😉

The real problem is how we as individuals fit in with society and it’s awkward to discuss because the same word has different meanings in the head of the reader/listner.

For instance the concepts covered by “communism” are in reality not political idiology but shared living which is not just essential to society but individuals as well.

So I say,

“Individual Rights -v- Social Responsability”

Mentioning the old saw of,

“A rising tide lifts all well found boats”

With few actually understanding the concept of what “well found” means not just for individuals but groups within society.

It’s extramly simple to show that “Capitalism” is extreamly pathogenic, not just to the poor but the rich as well. I talked about it with regards to Health Care oh three US Presidents ago. I did not then realise that within a few years a global pandemic would make my point for me and still is…

Yet neo-cons and capatalists are comming back in force and will kill and kill again over and over almost with industrial effect, hence the US average life span will keep dropping untill “retirment” will be beyond meaning to nearly all.

These are not things that are in any doubt, yet most are either in cognative often violent denial or won’t think about it because of the mental conflict it creates within them.

Why is this particularly bad in the US but less so in other places? Well you should also ask the same question about religion, oh and the prelevant political systems where ever you are in the world.

As I see it –backed by some evidence– it’s the “Mothers Lap” or “Grandfathers knee” issue that cults, religion and political parties rely on for the next generation of “supplicant fools”.

When you are below the age of ten, you trust implicitly and what you get taught forms the bed rock of all you will probably become in mental outlook in the rest of your life. This trust continues into your teens and into later life. That is what does not conflict gets accepted effectively without question, that which does conflict requires the work of questioning, which involves rather more than just effort and time. So as a rule of thumb,

“We walk the accepted road, not the unknown path”.

Thus we pass it on to our own children.

For various reasons I do not believe in deities any more than I do in the “Tooth Fairy”. I know that there will now be people upset on reading that, but is that my fault or their upbringing?

Personally I believe humans do not need myths to scare them into being better individuals, they simply have to want to be better in of themselves and have the oportunity to do so[1].

It’s easy to show that for thousands of years religion was what we now call politics and needless death very much a part of it and in many places still is. It’s nothing to do with mythical deities but personal power and control over others.

For some reason humans form hierarchies for good or bad, and crazily stick within them. The reason is most often fear, not least of which is fear of the future because it is unknown.

Ask yourself a question, if tommorow or the future held no fear for me what would I most enjoy being able to do for the rest of my life?

When people can shake of the shackles of their early upbringing and education, the answer often surprises them. And trust me contrary to what you get told it’s not a life of indolence or hedonism or even consumerism. For the majority it is actually little different to that when they have opportunity.

For me play/work is a duality call it the two sides of a sphere 😉

I’m insanely curious and live mainly inside my own head, not others heads, and what stops me being more curious is my failing health and what follows on from it. Something I know both of you have reason to understand.

[1] I won’t go into it because it will cause rather more than sniping, by those who do not want what they unfairly benifit from questioned. But consider this, both slaves and proffessionals work. So the question is not about work it’s self but the reason to work. With a little research you can find it boils down to “chemicals in the brain” acting on “brain structure”. That is there is little or no physical difference between work and play, but what brings us various types of pleasure or feel good factor.

Clive Robinson • June 29, 2022 8:02 PM

@ lurker,

What dismays me is the BBC “World Service” is no longer that.

You can blaim the “usual suspects” that are currently incumbents of No 10 etc.

However if you want to know who to “stick the shiv in” as it were, look no further than Rupert “the bear faced liar” Murdoch and his earlier UK rival Bob “no he does not” Maxwell.

Both of whom wanted the BBC and it’s then (last crntury) impartial position killed off as it was stopping their “Kingmaker” efforts to gain significant political influance.

There is an ongoing argument as to which of the two was the James Bond Villain “Elliot Carver”[1] true life prototype…

And it is still disputed. A side comment that came out via a famous TV Chef who was once romantically involved with Barbara Broccoli potentially indicated that the Carver charecter was based on Murdoch not Maxwell.

But as others have pointed out if proven true then Murdoch would “kill Bond” and those who “own the franchise” as he realy is that sort of guy.

Secondly Bob Maxwell had conveniently gone “overboard” from his boat before the film got going so he could be blaimed without risk (the dead can not litigate or scheme).

But the side comment, indicated that the film character had to be “toned down” to be believable. Which fits Murdoch way better than Maxwell, as Maxwell was basically just a thug and not particularly skilled at it and his known MO did not sit well on the Carver caricature.

As history has shown what was known about Murdoch back then by most celebs in the UK Film and music industries was he had more tenticals and was far more deadly than all the blue ringed Australian Blue Ringed Octopuses in the ocean. It was clear that “surveillance” was being used against celebs and that they were getting manipulated by Murdoch his later behaviours showing his MO dors sit well on the Carver caricature. A little of what was going on on the Murdoch empire in the UK came out, it could not realy be avoided and that little cost him a lot. But whilst others went to jail Murdoch in effect portrayed senility / insanity untill he got out of the UK jurisdiction…

Any way for ammusment/entertainment read,

https://jamesbond.fandom.com/wiki/Elliot_Carver

And compare with Murdoch’s later behaviours…

Clive Robinson • June 30, 2022 5:13 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

Re : Yes Monica, very well done!

Copyright violation at it’s scumiest worst…

You know I actually feel sorry for the three actors, that “frame” or “clip” has been “ripped” so often by so many that they must have been seen by a good 4/5ths of Inyernet users but can you name even one of them? Or what the add was originally for?

Clive Robinson • June 30, 2022 8:15 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : Authenticated Timestamps

As I mentioned just a couple of days back “timestamps” are basically a “bag of bits”(BoB) and realy do not mean very much.

As for “authenticating” timestamps that realy is going to be a fun game for many…

The trouble is you can write a book on both and how they “might interreact yet still barely scratch the surface.

The,

“It’s complicated”

Statement barely scratches the surface of the issues involved.

Clive Robinson • July 1, 2022 4:09 AM

@ ALL, in the north,

Fireworks in the Sky fot the 4th of July

Around 1200UTC a solar storm is due to hit the earth and will last the weekend and possibly longer. As we are on a new moon phase the oncreased auroral activity should reward those who have a keen eye for such things.

As for the rest of us,

1, GPS nav reception will improve

2, HF Propagation will be down.

3, Oh and for frequent flyers the “nuke the nads and nippers to be” effects will be down.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0yAS_FpLTsk

@ SLF you will note the mention of “power outage” effecting observations, you flagged up a week ago due to PEG managment stupidity.