The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a video—”2 Hours Of Squid To Relax/Study/Work To“—with 2.4 million views.
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.
Ted • October 7, 2022 5:23 PM
Hi @Ismar
To add to that, here is the criminal complaint for US v. Joseph Sullivan (former Uber CSO).
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.365508/gov.uscourts.cand.365508.1.0_1.pdf
vas pup • October 7, 2022 6:11 PM
Spies, informants and new enemies – Today’s intelligence agencies | DW Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX6xMrTJRCo&list=PLovlAKbQVz6DhA5EKIe5evDkD1Mxsumci&index=12
Very interesting video.
If BND actually do their job they will find those who blow up recently Nordstreams in Baltic Sea and bring them to justice (there are many ways to do that – see documentary for examples).
I doubt those made such decision informed upfront and got ok from Germany.
Weather • October 7, 2022 8:12 PM
@vas pump
The pressure regulator trip, I’ve Germany stopped import or Russia increased supply, seriously not a major issue.
Nick Levinson • October 7, 2022 9:10 PM
Breathing to unlock a phone: GizChina. This is only at a research stage. Chemical Communications. I imagine hardware, mainly an electronic nose, commercially viable in bulk, would have to be built for use on phones.
Nick Levinson • October 7, 2022 9:20 PM
Floppies still are major in Japan, one argument being that most modern viri are too big to fit on them, another being security of mailing over networking, another being reliability, and another being that one in five young people use them while floppy devices are hard to get; also, many bureaucrats are traditionalist, but there’s an effort to change that. This is in an article in GizChina. Here, I leave the security implications against floppies to other people.
name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons • October 8, 2022 2:17 PM
8 OCTOBER 2022 — Excerpts maligning the truth–Or, How did I spent my summer being a propagandist
Today, protests held around the world to Free Julian Assange are being held; people from Germany, France, England, the United States and elsewhere call for the release of the publisher and journalist. Stop persecuting Assange for truth telling. And, unless you have read the report from UN Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, please save your comments for a time when you are better prepared to speak from someplace other than ignorance.
Paraphrasing from a known political precept/declaration:
We, the U.S. government, in order to form a more corrupt and abusive authority, to establish by any means or mechanism to be the overlords to your life, establish injustice, insure domestic servitude, provide for uncommon weakness, demote the welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to nobody but us…
Journalists cover war, expose corruption, document environmental damage, lift up the marginalized, champion our communities, and hold the powerful to account. And for this, too often, they are killed, jailed, raped, threatened, and harassed. Women journalists, long a minority in the newsroom, are disproportionately targeted, on- and offline, in these attacks — 2022 (attribution given, in block, at the end of article)
Over the past five years, UNESCO estimates that 85 percent of the world’s population have experienced a decline in press freedom That’s why, at the first Summit for Democracy last December, I announced a series of new initiatives – from new programs to protect journalists from spurious lawsuits, to seed funding for the International Fund for Public Interest Media, to expanded support for at-risk reporters – that elevate a renewed commitment by the United States to champion fact-based reporting and independent media globally. Foreign governments, civil society, and the private sector also have an important roles to play in sustaining this vital work, and the United States stands ready to be a partner in all these efforts. — 2022 (attribution given, in block, at the end of article
It is incumbent on all of us to counter these threats to a free and independent media, including physical risk and arbitrary detention. The Committee to Protect Journalists found that, in 2020, a record number of journalists were imprisoned globally. Online abuse and harassment of journalists, particularly women and journalists of color, continues to increase. Authoritarians are striving to undermine the free press, manipulate the truth, or spread disinformation even as a shrinking news industry is creating more and more “news deserts,” areas without local media, around the world. These attacks are nothing less than a threat to democracies everywhere. — 2021, World Press Freedom Day, Statement by the President of the United States of America, Joesph R. Biden
The U.S. government; we will smite you down, make your life a living hell, if you dare tell the truth about the U.S. government’s affairs. We, the U.S. government, will make your U.S. citizenship a badge of shame. Dare say anything we, the U.S. government, reserve the right to undo your rights.
vas pup • October 8, 2022 2:31 PM
@Weather
What about new blowup of bridge to Crimea?
Do you think it is possible to prick Russian bear indefinitely?
That is not Afghanistan, Syria, Libya you name it.
I am personally living in US, have family members and friends in EU, and I absolutely do NOT want to become myself or my family members and friends become hostages of stupid and provocative actions of any country (or its patrons outside) leading all of us to WWIII. There would be no winners.
So, all sane folks should chill down as soon as possible and make actions to chill down those hot heads who think they could survive and win WWIII.
Have a good and peaceful weekend for all and Big Brother monitoring this blog as well. Nothing personal.
As Hermann Göring used to say: the best way to fight the thought is to break the skull of the person having such thought.
Now, it is to gag the person utilizing ‘1984’ as manual for all set of methods.
“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Let them keep their illusions for themselves.
I’ll stick to facts, logic, common sense, not emotions, delusions.
vas pup • October 8, 2022 2:40 PM
A life without a smartphone: two good and short videos:
https://www.dw.com/en/a-life-without-a-smartphone-1/av-63366379
https://www.dw.com/en/a-life-without-a-smartphone-2/av-63366386
JonKnowsNothing • October 8, 2022 4:38 PM
@ vas pup, @Weather, All
re: What about new blowup of bridge to Crimea?
I don’t think that this time it can be blamed on Russia. There was some spec that Russia blew up their own pipeline but I think we can set that one aside too.
I also doubt that Ukraine would have blown up either targets because at the start of the current incarnation of The 1,000 Years War, they didn’t blow up the bridges being used by the incoming Russian Army. Clearly the Ukrainians wanted to keep what infrastructure they could intact during this interlude.
So sans UKR and sans RU, I’d point a finger at the CIA. They are known to be part of the USA advisors and they are known to be less than scrupulous and they certainly have the technology and know how and they definitely have motive. They have historically done worse. How much better can it get than to tweak Germany and Russia at the same time?
Plus the CIA gets to saddle Europe, as a whole, with a much bigger reconstruction bill, all good for the CIA chums in International Construction. Germany was going to foot the bill until the pipeline blew up. Now EU is going to have to foot the bill instead.
The USA has lots of bills but a good many of them are not getting paid. We are in need of a long term, never ending, forever construction contract.
Plus it’s an election year….
SpaceLifeForm • October 8, 2022 4:57 PM
Kerch bridges
It is interesting. Pics here.
‘https://nitter.net/i/status/1578658502356373504
MarkH • October 8, 2022 6:33 PM
@JonKnowsNothing:
I’ve read multiple claims under your name that Ukrainian defenders failed to demolish bridges as needed to delay invasion forces.
First, the famous long Russian convoy aimed toward Kyiv was reportedly stalled by demolished bridges in their path.
Second, I read during the first weeks of the invasion that defenders had already demolished something like 300 bridges.
In an August press interview, Ukraine’s Maj. Gen. Dmytro Marchenko identified the Kerch bridge as a vital military target.
Occam’s razor is rusty from sitting unused.
SpaceLifeForm • October 8, 2022 6:46 PM
Kerch bridges
A photoshop. Well Played.
Can you verify the Creator?
‘https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FFehrSO6WQAI3qUA.jpg
Nick Levinson • October 8, 2022 8:23 PM
Smartphones that can’t reach an emergency number such as 911: “Calling . . . from a Pixel phone gets to the actual call screen, but the call never actually connects.” Not all phones, but some. Android Police.
On the basis that a narrow crack of security is less likely to be detected before causing adversity, an attack that prevents only calling an emergency number might go undetected until it matters to a user.
Clive Robinson • October 8, 2022 9:05 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing,
Re : War Demolition
“There was some spec that Russia blew up their own pipeline but I think we can set that one aside too.”
It is usual these days when starting an investigation to take a look at the money/finances involved.
Not just with the commissioning of the act bring investigated but to all the actors involved.
As I mentioned the “pipeline bomb” had in effect decommissioned a minimum of $10,000,000,000 of infrastructure, of which more than half was Russian owned. Further Russia has lost a revenue stream up in the $6-10billion range.
Germany has likewise suffered financial damage as it’s economy has been hit. Likewise the Ukrain would have lost $3billion in “transit fees” if Nord Stream 2 had been certified and in opetation.
What has not been said is how much the US, and certain other countries would benifit/loose.
It’s interesting to note three things,
1, The US stopped Gazprom from putting alarms on the pipeline over “anti-submarine” fears. Claiming Russia were insidiously seeking to extend its military / intelligence technology through Europe.
2, The multiple explosions –reported by Sweden– happened in intetnational waters.
3, Norway and Denmark from US prompting have blocked Russia from inspecting the damage.
All of which makes “fermented herring” smell sweet in comparison.
There claim originating from the US is “It’s Russia wot dun it” but when pushed to substantiate the claim the reasoning does not add up.
Need I remind people the US has a history of making unsubstantiated claims, a number of which we now know were wrong, and some were to cover up US actions.
I’ll let others draw their own conclusions but I’ll say for the record that all the reasons claimed so far as to why it was Russia, do not hold water under the “Rational Actor” principle, whilst reasons claimed why it could be the US or US allies do…
Heck one argument that Iran has the technology and ability to do it (true), and has done it as revenge for the US assasination of an Iranian diplomat on a peace mission (they have done similar) or to keep the US out of their geopolitical region makes more sense than Russia, when looked at under the rational actor principle.
JonKnowsNothing • October 8, 2022 9:40 PM
@ MarkH, All
re: I’ve read multiple claims under your name that Ukrainian defenders failed to demolish bridges as needed to delay invasion forces.
I acknowledge that this is a sensitive area for all who have concerns and I know you have dedicated more research into the conflict than I have.
I base and based my evaluations on images as printed in MSM at the start of the conflict and during the early phases. I do not read the military dispatches. In the early days the RU convoy was stalled and some bridges were destroyed which were replaced by pontoon bridges to some lesser success by RU.
In the historical sense of the conflict which is over 1,000 years of complicated military maneuvers and diplomatic counterpoints, the traditional defense is to disable all roads and bridges as soon as possible. This clearly was not happening at the early phase in the current conflict.
There are a number of probable reasons why they didn’t blow the bridges early and why “someone” is blowing up infrastructure that is key to both UKR and RU. As UKR is expecting to regain this territory sooner or later demolishing bridges now may be counter productive for their offense.
The current bridge is of course important to RU but it’s equally important to UKR which expects to regain that area sooner or later. Time is fluid when the conflict is 1,000 years long.
Bridge blowing will remain a strategy for the next edition of the conflict, whenever that may occur once this cycle is completed. The timing for bridge blowing was in days 1+ not in weeks+.
lurker • October 8, 2022 11:42 PM
Just coincidence that truck went up beside a fuel train? An eye on the trigger finger … But up in the breeze like that it wouldn’t burn much. A tunnel on IIRC the Guangyuan-Lanzhou line was blocked for two years when a minor earthquake dropped the electric traction wires onto a fuel train.
Winter • October 9, 2022 3:07 AM
@JonKnowsNothing
In the historical sense of the conflict which is over 1,000 years of complicated military maneuvers and diplomatic counterpoints, the traditional defense is to disable all roads and bridges as soon as possible. This clearly was not happening at the early phase in the current conflict.
It is possible that enemy operatives prevented the destruction of the bridges. That has been traditional too.
Ukrainians were somewhat surprised about the invasion. Also, there seems to have been widespread uncertainty about the level of support for the Russian cause in Ukraine.
This all might have caused some added confusion and delay.
SpaceLifeForm • October 9, 2022 3:18 AM
Kerch bridges
I looks like some flying thermite got to the train right where the tanker cars were. Amazing coincidence.
And the wind was howling. Nice blowtorch.
‘https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FFehO0sSWIAIe5Mu.png
listen to this video
‘https://nitter.net/Osinttechnical/status/1578596502376632321#m
If you are not familiar with how concrete works and what spalling is, well, let’s just say I would not be using that rail bridge. There is no way it can be considered safe for use already.
Winter • October 9, 2022 3:18 AM
@Clive
As I mentioned the “pipeline bomb” had in effect decommissioned a minimum of $10,000,000,000 of infrastructure, of which more than half was Russian owned. Further Russia has lost a revenue stream up in the $6-10billion range.
On the other hand, it was pretty clear Nord Stream would not be opened again. The damage caused by suddenly (partially) closing the pipeline was much larger than the cost of construction. Russia has become a toxic source of fuel.
In their current dispair, the Kremlin’s best use of the pipeline would be propaganda. By blaming the destruction on the USA, they would hope to drive a wedge between NATO partners.
*U.S. podcasters spread Kremlin narratives on Nord Stream sabotage *
‘https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/u-s-podcasters-spread-kremlin-narratives-on-nord-stream-sabotage/
As is typical following an event like this, conspiracy theories about who was responsible quickly proliferated online, with the Kremlin promoting a familiar trope: that the United States was responsible for a nefarious, clandestine plot. In official statements, state-backed media, and tweets, Kremlin messengers promoted the idea that the United States carried out the attack.
lurker • October 9, 2022 4:44 AM
@SpaceLifeForm
I listened to that video, and I heard wind noise in the phone mic. Earlier posted pics of the day after from the other side showed most of the fuel fell into the sea. It appears a sea breeze runs at right angles to the bridge, and only three(?) tank cars were damaged. Wind running along the bridge would have done more damage.
Still, yes, I would want serious engineering analysis before running trains. MSM is reporting a passenger train is planned to cross Tuesday.
MarkH • October 9, 2022 5:07 AM
@Clive:
My understanding is that neither pipeline was flowing gas. One has not started up; the other was shut off by the Kremlin to punish Europe.
Accordingly there is no present loss of revenue from the damage.
The lines might be repairable … it’ll take time to find out. But as Winter observed, the future of Russia as a gas supplier to the West is bleak.
Clive Robinson • October 9, 2022 7:37 AM
@ Winter,
Re : Nord Stream 1/2
“On the other hand, it was pretty clear Nord Stream would not be opened again.”
Err no that defies history, economics, and logic.
The east of Europe needs energy to be able to develop economically and not drag the rest of Europe down[1]. The nearest, mot abundent and cheapest are Russian supplies.
The US “policy” from before the fall of the Berlin wall has been to keep the EU in a form of “vassal status” dependent on US military and similar sales, to in effect keep Russia “bottled up and economically destabalised”. Putin is the logical result of such “power plays”.
I could go on but to make one point that every one appears to be looking the other way about.
With the piplines intact, even if they was not currently carrying gas it was a major chip on the cards table in any negotiating, current or future. Whilst the ability to threaten to take it off the table acts as leverage, to actually do so means the leverage to go and is not at all the act of a “rational player” or for that matter a “random player” because it’s a very major loose-loose for both ends of the pipeline. The only winers are those not currently involved with direct energy supply / use in the EU.
The only major political entity to gain from Nord Stream 1/2 destruction as a rational player is the US because,
1, It significantly damages the EU.
2, It brings the EU back into US control via NATO.
3, It significantly damages Russia.
4, It significantly destabalises the
entire East EU / Russian region.
So for an attack that would have at most be in the low millions, the net gain for the US now and in the future is at a minimum in the high billions if not trillions of dollars.
Also it helps take the issue of “Which currency will replace the USD as the world trade currancy” off of the table for the next decade. Which by default keeps the US in charge of world trade and economics.
@ MarkH,
“My understanding is that neither pipeline was flowing gas. One has not started up; the other was shut off by the Kremlin to punish Europe.”
Germany after political preasure from the EU which actually originated in the US decided to not certify NS2. Which was why there was no gas flowing in NS2. Gazprom not the Kremlin had planed to take it off line anyway for which there had been years of warning, which was to act on “maintainance issues” with NS1. As had been expected for quite some time and discussed in petro-chem engineering trade journals (the need to ensure “availability / security of gas delivery was part of why NS2 went ahead in the first place).
The population of Austria / Germany now faced with a trippling or quadrupaling of domestic energy in the next 12-24months as well as three hour a day “rolling power cuts” unsurprisingly freaked out. It’s been indicated but not confirmed that discussions were underway to get both pipelines back on line before winter set in. Then by some miracle for the US both pipelines were destroyed not one but both…
Which neans, now neither is going back on line any time soon if at all. As two other EU nations under US preasure are going to indefinately block Russian access to the pipelines Russia owns through Gazprom. Which makes,
“The lines might be repairable … it’ll take time to find out.”
Highly improbable at best. Put simply the corsive sea water now inside the pipelines is causing damage minute by minute, hour by hour. It won’t be long before repairing the pipelines will be not possible for safety reasons.
As for,
“the future of Russia as a gas supplier to the West is bleak.”
That is a daft thing to say, basic economics and the need for economic growth in Eastern Europe will ensure that Russian energy supplies will be either back in the EU very quickly, or in effect done so through offsetting other energy sources. If the latter it will hit the Eastern EU nations economies and development hard.
Politics as played in the West is a very short term game, economic growth is the most important “vote buyer” there is because it ensures “Bread and Circuses” for the voting citizen. The lack of the supply of which caused various Roman Political power bases to colapse a couple of thousand years ago (and one of the reasons the Roman’s invaded Britain).
To be blunt,
“Energy is “the new water”
Over which wars will be bitterly fought. Not that “Water Wars” are going any any time soon or are any where near over. Ask people in the West of the US about that particular problem. For instance the populous of California is having both Energy and Water oppression pushed onto them by major US Corporates and neo-cons very much to the general citizens detriment. Those who can move away are doing so, those who can not… Well lets just say some are doing more than just thinking about the Ben Franklin realisation and thus Tom Jefferson option,
“Let every fart count as a peal of thunder for liberty. Let every fart remind the nation of how much it has let pass out of its control.”
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure…”
Remember in the US,
“he Dollar is the life blood of the nation.”
And for now atleast the battle grounds on which much of it is spilled is the courts.
[1] History has shown repeatedly what happens when economically disparat areas join together. See US history of power and prosperity shifting from the agricultral south to the north as it became industrialised. More recently see what happened due to German reunification and how it turned the “granite mark” into the “camembert mark” with German people driving car boot loads of German currency across various boarders to convert to other currencies and deposit in fresh bank accounts. Oh and how the EU north and North West have practiced economic warfare on the South and South East of the EU to “asset strip” and keep them in agranrian subservience to the north in particular.
Winter • October 9, 2022 8:54 AM
@Clive
The east of Europe needs energy to be able to develop economically and not drag the rest of Europe down[1]. The nearest, mot abundent and cheapest are Russian supplies.
Nord Stream provided gas to Germany. The East gets their gas from other pipelines.
For Germany, betting your economy and future on an agent that has vowed to destroy you seems suicidal. Which is how German politicians are seeing it nowadays.
Furthermore, the recent floodings in the German-Belgian border region has made a shift to sustainable energy politically urgent.
“Energy is “the new water”
Europe must seriously work on a sustainable transition. If they don’t, they’ll collapse. Europe below the Alps is already becoming too dry and hot. Soon, there will not be enough fresh water to support the current population of the southern countries. They will have to move North.
As said before, relying on Russia for your “water” is suicidal. They sneakily kept the reserves low before the winter and then stopped the supplies. As for short term mismanagement, the Russians have a world class reputation.
As discussed before, Putin is trying to build a food kartel. Such a kartel of basic food is also a direct threat to Europe and Germany.
Winter • October 9, 2022 9:13 AM
@Clive
The US “policy” from before the fall of the Berlin wall has been to keep the EU in a form of “vassal status” dependent on US military and similar sales, to in effect keep Russia “bottled up and economically destabalised”.
Trump blew that scheme already quite thoroughly. His attacks on NATO and his admiration for Putin and Kim Joung-Un already told the Europeans clearly what they should think of US help.
But now we have Ukrainian soldiers draining the Russian army of people, arms, and materials. The same is done to the Russian economy.
Russia was doomed when Putin chose to stop reindustrialization in favor of easily extractable fossil fuels. Basically, Putin chose kleptocracy over industry. Now their army is in shambles, unable to fight a third rate country, and their industrial base a wasteland.
JonKnowsNothing • October 9, 2022 9:51 AM
@Winter, Clive, All
re: [All] must seriously work on a sustainable transition.
The big problem with this design is:
Often when folks spout this statement, they envision
There isn’t a way to make that happen.
Sustainable really means
Which brings in loads of engineering and social problems. The big one is:
We already know about cryptomining vs energy consumption. We also know that in the USA and some other countries, people are being dropped off the energy charts in favor of “?what?”.
Energy is fluid, and storage is in batteries. But fluid energy is consumed and planned for by the Utility Industry. Like, the number lights are ON (energy demand or drain) during X hours (resource supply). If people are not the ones using it then ?what? is it that is taking up the excess supply (as usage)?
Utility Industry can adjust to some extent the usage and demand. The USA has an entire Energy Grid going up to Canada and ENRON found out they could manipulate the long term energy contracts for grid supply to raise exorbitant amounts of money.
There isn’t anyway to keep this system running without a continuous source of “new inputs” aka fossil fuels (depletion) or nuclear fuels (disposal) AND keep our same usage-demands.
So, while many of us are already bundled up, not turning on the heat, dealing with the rest of the global economic meltdown: famines, agricultural disasters, etc. , consider what level of “sustainable” is being considered?
When the loss of a couple of pipelines throws all of EU and UK into a self-induced Ice Age and the USA has created an Ice Age based on population deprivation, what does that foretell about our near and long term future and the future of our computer integrated society?
There is the myth of massive solar installations providing the same level of support.
Solar can provide support but at reduced levels. The USA has a lot of RVs, trailers, motor homes and nearly all will come with “self contained solar systems”: panels, converters, batteries and inverters. They work and they will run nearly everything the modern household desires: big panel TVs, internet, heating, lights, kitchen, microwave, mini oven, hot water. In a 8ft x 12ft-35ft space. 12ft for 2 people, 35ft for 4-6. (1)
A bridge too far or a space too small?
===
1) In the USA many cities, counties have declared LIVING in such vehicles or units to be illegal. Camping short term is OK provided you are parked in an approved camping location.
There is a technical difference between: LIVING unit and DWELLING unit. The presence of a kitchen.
THOW, PMRV, RVs are not defined to be LIVING units and in many places are illegal for permanent housing. It depends on the local ordinances if they are allowed as LIVING units or not.
Winter • October 9, 2022 12:00 PM
@JonKnowsNothing
What Is Sustainable?
Often when folks spout this statement, they envision
Sustainable == what can be sustained indefinitely
For solar energy, that is around 300kWh/year per m^2 if you place them in the Sahara. That is 300 GWh per km^2. Add some 20% for access etc, and supportive structures and ~4km^2 give us 1TWh per year. There is a Lot of room in the world’s deserts to fit in multiples of 4km^2 pieces of solar power.
Basically, just like we do not rely on the oil in our back garden, we also should not solely rely on the sun on our roofs.
MarkH • October 9, 2022 12:20 PM
Whoever thinks Gazprom and the Kremlin are two different things, does not understand the Russian Federation.
Winter • October 9, 2022 2:18 PM
@MarkH
Whoever thinks Gazprom and the Kremlin are two different things, does not understand the Russian Federation.
The history and fate of Yukos and Chodorovski should be instructive in this respect.
Winter • October 9, 2022 2:38 PM
@MarkH
Whoever thinks Gazprom and the Kremlin are two different things, does not understand the Russian Federation.
PS
At least 5 executives of Gazprom have died this year, sometimes with their families murdered.
Whenever there is light between Gazprom and the Kremlin, someone dies a violent death.
JonKnowsNothing • October 9, 2022 3:29 PM
@Winter, All
re: There is a Lot of room in the world’s deserts to fit in multiples …
Like a good number of people, you are thinking that any resource is YOURS to take when and how YOU want. Sand is just sand.(1) Deserts are nothing but wastelands. If it’s not paved over with tarmac, it’s YOURS for the taking, for YOUR exclusive benefit(s).
Deserts are full ecosystems. They are not wastelands of Nothing.
The USA has plenty of wide field solar arrays, covering vast swaths of land. It generates solar energy but at the unspoken price of the lands laying under the combined effects of massive construction, earth upheaval, eco-displacment and more.
Try to fit all of the Netherlands energy needs IN the Netherlands and see how many arrays you will have to build over your famous sea walls and reclaimed lands…
To be sustainable means:
Otherwise all you are doing is swapping Oil for Sand.
===
1) Sand, gravel and rocks are actually very valuable. They are components for concrete, cement, construction. Much of our modern planet is built using re-cycled rocks and crushed mountains.
Sand harvesting is a key component of shoreline erosion. In California, the sand harvesting from beaches to feed construction needs, has created a ripple effect that rolls up and down the coastlines of California and all the adjacent lands along the Pacific Ocean. A simple shift in beach profile causes a shoreline ripple effect up and down the coast.
The construction of seawalls, an attempt to mitigate this shoreline shift, pushes the water and wave effects farther, making the erosion effects more extreme.
Water displacement is a powerful force.
Grima Squeakersen • October 9, 2022 3:56 PM
@Clive re: Nordstream sabotage – He only way I see a rational motive for Putin to have ordered this is if he was/is in need of a false flag operation. The Western MSM (which, btw, encompasses much more than Murdoch’s emoire, as I’m sure you know) would have us believe that Putin is facing a great deal of internal criticism and conflict over his failure to wrap up the Ukraine invasion successfully. If that pressure is sufficient that he fears being deposed by a home-grown coup, I could see the possible motivation. Having written that, I think it is improbably thin sauce, indeed. I don’t even have a great deal of confidence that the internal Russian strife allegations are accurate – we are being provided with little by the media beyond an incessant stream of pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia propaganda.
vas pup • October 9, 2022 4:47 PM
@Clive:
Recently US administration unfortunately is following secret advices from Your country – nothing personal.
What UK is doing is very similar how GB trained personal against Nazi Germany during WWII: covert operations, spies, propaganda, disinformation.
I guess pipes were blown up by UK or its close partners (Poland in particular – was interested to become gas hub in Europe by themselves – same day when Norway-Poland gas pipeline was opened for operation) without preliminary notification of US, then just put US administration before fact thereafter. That is why US military aircrafts were flying over the pipes soon after explosion. Total disregard of opinion of Denmark, Sweden and for sure Germany – members of NATO and so called allies – also support such guess – who benefited?
The purpose is to eliminate Germany as potential gas hub and main economic power in EU, economic competitor of UK & US. That is objectively. Put emotions aside.
Moreover, if I were German administration I’ll rather safe military equipment for own defense after Poland requested reparation from Germany rather than sending it outside.
Clive Robinson • October 9, 2022 5:43 PM
@ Winter,
“that is around 300kWh/year per m^2 if you place them in the Sahara”
I’m curious where your figuers come from?
Irradiance is about 1.3kW/m^2 average at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, and after doing a lot of odd calculations, involving amongst other things Kepler’s orbital equations, you get a theoretical model which supprisingly ties up well with measurment… You get the integrated insolation solar pannel figures –given in the normalised Watt Peak(Wp)– most often given as 800–950kWh/(kWp·y) in Norway –lowest on globe– up to 2,900 –highest– in Australia. With the Sahara being a little under Australia.
SpaceLifeForm • October 9, 2022 6:15 PM
@ lurker
re: Kerch rail bridge
Yes, the burning fuel varied. As the sun rose, the winds picked up.
Per Putin, it is in great shape.
Note the far underside of the span that was not directly under the leaking tanker cars. Spot the blowtorch affect and the spalling. That stuff hanging down was not in the design.
‘https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FFekB-QJXwAMpJ3V.jpg
It helped that Russia used seawater in an attempt to put out the fires. Fresh corrosive seawater that gets into the cracks of now damaged concrete to attack the steel.
It’s just a matter of time until failure.
There is a movie about a dam, creating cracks, and being patient. You just have to wait for Mother Nature to join the cast and do her thing.
Clive Robinson • October 9, 2022 6:30 PM
@ vas pup,
Re : UK and Nord Stream
“I guess pipes were blown up by UK or its close partners (Poland in particular – was interested to become gas hub in Europe by themselves – same day when Norway-Poland gas pipeline was opened for operation) without preliminary notification of US, then just put US administration before fact thereafter.”
It’s always hard to tell what goes on with the IC in the UK as they have significant control over the MSM.
However economically the UK gains very little from stopping gas comming into East Europe from Russia.
In fact you could argue the opposit. North Sea Gas is split up by a calculation based on coastline length facing, and distance from the gas location. Which means Norway with a very low population and very long coastline gets a very large portion of the gas, it does not need to use it’s self. With Russian Gas comming in to Germany, Germany would not need Norwegian gas which would make it lower priced for the UK etc.
Without Russian gas Norwegian gas gets a lot more expensive. As much electrical power is gas generated in the UK –French EDF could not deliver the promised nuclear– the UK economy is going to get hammered at a time of great political incompetence, which is hitting the finance markets hard and devaluing the GBP.
So blowing up NS1/2 which is going to push inflation up a lot, would kind of be “shooting yourself in the foot” for the UK economy so not something a rational actor in the UK’s position would be likely to do.
As for Poland, their current “madness” politically is realy something I don’t want to even get close to trying to work through let alone explain. All I will say is it’s base cause is something the US is starting to suffer from and we won’t have long to wait as it’s less than a month to go…,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_elections
I guess a little wait and see time is in order, before the major head scratching starts (with probably a list of claims that will make “fake news” look tame).
Clive Robinson • October 9, 2022 7:06 PM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Re : The Film…
“There is a movie about a dam, creating cracks, and being patient. You just have to wait for Mother Nature to join the cast and do her thing.”
I think you might be thinking of the follow up film to the more famous 1961 film “The Guns of Navarone” (based on Alistair MacLean’s 1957 rather good book of the same name).
Alistair MacLean wrote the sequel –the only sequel he ever wrote– in 1968 called “Force 10 From Navarone”. Whilst it was a good book and sold well, the film follow up of the same name did not happen untill 1978 and nearly did not happen. Though the film was a modest success it was only loosely based on the book as the director decided it needed “more action”. It was also the last film Robert Shaw compleated, more famous for his “Jaws” role he died of a heart attack aged 51 partway through “Avalanche Express” which panned at the box office.
Force 10, occured at a transition in the “action film” industry where books got less and less followed and in some cases –James Bond– only the name of the film and the book had any commonality.
SpaceLifeForm • October 9, 2022 8:12 PM
There is a breed of cow called Devin.
Some are raised outside of Iowa.
‘https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/16853-u-s-rancher-sentenced-to-11-years-for-244-million-ghost-cattle-scam
An American rancher was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years in prison for defrauding two meat processing companies of over US$244 million by raising 265,000 bovines for them that never in fact existed.
JonKnowsNothing • October 9, 2022 9:00 PM
@Clive, @ SpaceLifeForm,
re: … about a dam, creating cracks, and being patient.
There are many RL dams that have failed with resulting disasters.
Some of the dams that are pending failure are those along the Colorado River. The side walls of the canyon are not stable and crumble. Some have predicted the side edge seals will fail and the entire force of the Colorado River will plummet down stream.
“It’s just a matter of time…” Morpheus The Matrix Series
===
Search Terms
St. Francis Dam
San Francisquito Canyon
Los Angeles County, California, United States
built from 1924 to 1926
William Mulholland
The collapse of the dam is considered to be one of the worst American civil engineering disasters of the 20th century and remains the second-greatest loss of life in California’s history, after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
California Historical Marker
NO. 919 ST. FRANCIS DAM DISASTER SITE – The 185-foot concrete St. Francis Dam, part of the Los Angeles aqueduct system, stood a mile and a half north of this spot. On March 12, 1928, just before midnight, it collapsed and sent over twelve billion gallons of water roaring down the valley of the Santa Clara River. Over 450 lives were lost in this, one of California’s greatest disasters.
SpaceLifeForm • October 9, 2022 9:04 PM
@ Clive, ALL
An example of an AI that just flat out sucks.
This was recently posted to a just over a year old article here, as spotted via Recent-100.
Spelling good. Grammar, Capitalization, Punctuation, Sentence Structure, is fail.
It is not even GPT-3 quality. But, I think it is reading here.
‘https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/09/i-am-not-satoshi-nakamoto.html/#comment-410808
lurker • October 9, 2022 9:18 PM
@SpaceLifeForm, re spalling
Chloride ions (ex sea water) are remarkably mobile within not cracked concrete. A great amount of research has gone into formulation, mixing and placing concrete in marine environments. Chinese claim to have a secret formula guaranteeing 120yr life for the HK-Macao bridge. I regret I won’t be around to see the result.
SpaceLifeForm • October 9, 2022 11:19 PM
@ lurker, JonKnowNothing, ALL
When concrete is formed, ask yourself, where does the water go?
Hint: It does not evaporate.
Spalling is bad. The water is inside of the concrete. This is why concrete has to cure. Concrete does not dry. It cures. It is a chemical reaction.
If heat creates cracks in concrete, then that opens up pathways for seawater to interact with the water inside of the concrete.
‘https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/water-molecules-and-their-interaction-salt
Oh, and making dry cement requires a lot of energy.
It is still not clear how the chemical reactions actually really work, but it does appear these days, that how Salicylic acid works is better understood. But, not much better.
Decades ago, it was not known how either Concrete or Aspirin actually worked, even though they were both known to be useful products. It was considered magic.
‘https://www.britannica.com/technology/cement-building-material/The-major-cements-composition-and-properties
Weather • October 10, 2022 12:29 AM
@vas pup
I know I lost the main keyword, but can think off others, it’s oil and gas, those countries depend on the income and ours depend upon it, it’s not crazy nutty are wrong, but they want to do it to quickly. I think that is the major point I will make.
Glade to be around you folks, yeah meds.
Winter • October 10, 2022 12:31 AM
@Clive
I’m curious where your figuers come from?
Surface irradiation in the Sahara is generally reported as 2000-3000 kWh/year. I take ~15% solar panel/conversion efficiency for 2500 kW/year, rounded down.
It is pretty useless to try to get “exact” numbers as all these numbers depend on operational factors that are unknown.
I generally use Sustainable Energy – without the hot air as a basis for the calculations.
‘http://www.withouthotair.com/
Especially:
‘https://www.withouthotair.com/c25/page_178.shtml
‘https://www.withouthotair.com/c25/page_179.shtml
Winter • October 10, 2022 12:50 AM
@JonKnowsNothing
Like a good number of people, you are thinking that any resource is YOURS to take when and how YOU want.
Far from it. Just like we “ask” OPEC countries to sell us oil and gas, we will have to ask desert countries to sell us electricity. Morocco is already building solar plants to do that. Others can follow.
That energy politics was violent colonialism in the past does not mean that has to be so in the future. For one thing, I expect that large, dispersed fields of mirrors and solar panels require more cooperation with local people than isolated oil wells.
Deserts are full ecosystems. They are not wastelands of Nothing.
So were our own lands. That did not stop us to use most (all?) of it to live off. Other people too have a right to earn a living using some of their lands.
Otherwise all you are doing is swapping Oil for Sand.
I do not mind that other people earn a living by supplying me with power. If the people living there don not want to sell us electricity, we will have to look for other solutions. But history tells me that it is likely that poor people will want to trade with rich people to earn money.
Sand, gravel and rocks are actually very valuable.
Most of the Sahara is rocks, not sand. Also, Sahara sand is currently not used for building. Probably because it is too round from wind erosion.
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 1:00 AM
@ Clive
You nailed it.
‘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_10_from_Navarone_(film)
Winter • October 10, 2022 1:13 AM
@Grima, All
would have us believe that Putin is facing a great deal of internal criticism and conflict over his failure to wrap up the Ukraine invasion successfully.
Putin build his political career on the image of a Strong Man and Master Planner able to put Russia back on the global stage as a Real World Power. Less than a year ago he was ranting about taking on NATO head on.
Now the “Second Army of the World” became the second army in Ukraine.
In short, Putin and in his tow, Russia, has become a loser. In their own perception, Russia has become the laughing stock of the world.
Moreover, a strong autocrat is beaten up by a democratically elected clown in a country one third his size. So much for the weakness and decadence of Democracies. The Ukrainians even have female soldiers at the front.[1]
Yes, Putin is in deep trouble.
[1] Remember how demeaning it was for IS fighters to be beaten by female Peshmerga fighters. Remember how Tucker Carlson was adoring those tough Russian soldiers, just before they were beaten by not tough, but much better organized Ukrainian forces.
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 1:48 AM
@ MarkH, Winter
It was not just a dynamite explosion. The intense flames would not have lasted that long.
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–hxd1CrOqg
Do not assume that there are sellers in position to sell.
Do not assume that there are sellers in position to deliver.
They may be willing, but there are others that want to hamstring markets.
As we are seeing now with supply chain problems.
Those that want to hamstring are insane, and think they can capture the market. They are not happy with just their slice of the pie. But, if they keep at it, it will not be long before there is no market to capture at all. They don’t want anyone else to have a slice of the pie. They want it all.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
Winter • October 10, 2022 2:06 AM
@SLF
The love of money is the root of all evil.
No, social life is the root of all evil. If we were not social, there would be no evil.
Sorry, but the link is stale and I am unable to comprehend your comment.
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 3:00 AM
@ ALL
Tidbits
The Kerch rail bridge track is very damaged, not fit for purpose, even if one was stupid enough to trust the structure itself. A bit of length. (a different movie that Clive may have mentioned not too long ago).
Russia having conniption fit, launching lots of cruise missiles into Ukraine, including Kyiv. Samsung building heavily damaged.
Line to Starbucks is long. What? This is not the line to Starbucks?
‘https://nitter.net/Cyx_5/status/1579015922811277313#m
Winter • October 10, 2022 3:37 AM
@SLF, all
In July, former president Medvedev posted two maps of the Future of Ukraine.
‘https://eurasiantimes.com/russia-releases-future-map-of-ukraine-absorbs-the-rest/
The first map is the vision of Zelensky according Medvedev
“In the mind of the president of Ukraine, damaged by psychotropic substances, this is what the map of his country’s bright future will look like,” Medvedev wrote about the first map in his Telegram post.
The second map as Medvedev predicts
While the second map showed Ukraine’s territory reduced to Kyiv and a small surrounding area, with seven regions to the west annexed by Poland and three in the Southwest by Hungary and Romania. The rest of the country was wholly absorbed into Russia.
Look at the maps an make your own mind up about which maps looks the more likely outcome now.
Note that Medvedev is also the man predicting a Moscow led empire from Vladivostok to Lisbon.
‘https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10689353/Ukraine-war-Putins-endgame-Moscow-led-empire-Vladivostok-Lisbon.html
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 4:35 AM
@ Winter, -, -, Clive
Funny business with the blog software. It is like the triple dot stuff. The double dash got converted to an emoji that fails later.
Cut and paste what I typed, then delete what appears to be a dash or a long dash, then place a double dash immediately after the question mark v equal.
It should be ?v=[dash][dash]hxd1CrOqg
My point stands. I viewed numerous videos of the scene. It was not just a simple dynamite bomb. Whatever it was (thermite, thermate, mix of magnesium, aluminum, whatever), it was a very intense fire that lasted well after the initial explosion. Police and Fire were on the scene as it burned. They were not going near it. My point is that it happened in Moscow. And if Putin and his cronies want to blame it on Ukraine, well, that kind of tells you how bad their security is if someone can plant a car bomb in the Moscow area. I would have to think that those that can plant a car bomb in the Moscow area, probably have high connections, and I doubt they are in Ukraine.
also try g(dugina daughter killed in car bombing moscow)
Winter • October 10, 2022 5:00 AM
@SLF
My point is that it happened in Moscow. And if Putin and his cronies want to blame it on Ukraine, well, that kind of tells you how bad their security is if someone can plant a car bomb in the Moscow area.
For what it is worth, the US blame the Ukrainians for the car bomb.
‘https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11284639/US-believes-Ukraine-car-bomb-killed-daughter-key-Putin-ally.html
piglet • October 10, 2022 6:36 AM
Strange story: the head of the German government’s cyber security authority BSI is going to be reassigned because of contacts with a private cyber security organization with suspected contacts to the Russian secret service…
The contacts were revealed by TV satire show…
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/bsi-schoenbohm-101.html
piglet • October 10, 2022 6:46 AM
It seems one can’t post comments when a URL link is entered in the form. Is that a new thing or has it been like that before?
Clive Robinson • October 10, 2022 7:36 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Re : Thermobaric weapons.
“… it was a very intense fire that lasted well after the initial explosion.”
If you look into the design of “Bunker Busting Bombs” or “Hyperbaric” bombs –subclass of thermobaric– the design is to have an initial very high over preasure explossion that forces doors and pushes “flare material” into the bunker and ignites it. This in effect then creates a partial vacuum by using up all the oxygen in the confined bunker and making a highly toxic gas. The combined preasure changes are not survivable for equipment or living creatures.
The result is most occupants are dead one way or another from flash burns, cerebral haemorrhaging or asphyxiation. Those that survive the initial blast abd flare, usually die within a few hours from multiple organ failure due to the micro rupturing caused by the preasure changes. Others later die due to the flare material being aluminium powder and PTFE dust[1], and will die of emphysema or similar at a later date. In effect slow and highly dibilitating asphyxiation due to the reduction in gaseous exchange surface in the lungs.
Similar weapons used for very high over preasure in more open spaces are of the form of FAE / FAX where the secondary is not flare material but some kind fuel are also in the thermobaric weapon class. These can release blast energy equivalent to small nuclear devices.
In both cases the bombs have very high energy density as unlike conventional explosives they do not contain oxygen or nitrogen which takes upto 80% of conventional explosives mass. Further the do not “point detonate” with isotropic shockwave but “volume detonate” causing not an isotropic expanding shock wave but a large crushing volume that then forms an exteria shock wave.
You might find it of interest because Russia used to specialise in FAE / FAX bombs, that forensically leave traces similar to intense fuel fires.
[1] Overheating of “Poly Tetra Fluoro Ethylene”(PTFE) –AKA Teflon– to the point of thermal decomposition, generates fumes of highly toxic “Per Fluoro Iso Butene”(PFIB) and poses a serious health hazard to the human respiratory tract as well as other significant toxilogical disadvantages. PFIB is a fluoro-olefin and is approximately ten times as toxic as phosgene. Inhalation of this gas can cause “Pulmonary Edema”(PE) and other lower lung scaring, which can lead to death. PFIB is now included in Schedule 2 of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
MarkH • October 10, 2022 12:48 PM
@SpaceLifeForm et al:
“how bad their security is”
This childish graphic proclaims twenty — count them, twenty!! — distinct defenses of the Kerch bridge:
https://twitter.com/Elizrael/status/1578675708876193793
Even dolphins could not keep it safe.
Attackers of extended targets have a variety of built-in advantages over defenders.
fib • October 10, 2022 3:00 PM
@ Climate buffs
I don’t know about you, but to me the most conspicuous sign of globalheating/climate change is the arctic atmospheric pressure readings. I have been monitoring the situation for the last few months, and I observe persistent and disturbing low atmospheric pressures throughout the arctic. At this moment, for example, the pressure is at 1000hPa, reaching 958 at some points[0] – the normal being something above 1040.
As a consequence of the current conditions, it is possible to see that the rate of freezing of the arctic shows a deceleration[1] in the last few days. The polar high is still healthy in Antarctica.
[0]h*tps://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-56.81,82.29,280/loc=-171.380,78.676
[1]h*tps://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
lurker • October 10, 2022 3:29 PM
@fib, “The polar high is still healthy in Antarctica.”
I might have not been looking before, but these last couple of years I’ve seen too many low pressure systems around 60 South with central surface pressure of below 940.
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 5:02 PM
@ Winter, Clive
re: blame game and disinformation
That ‘source’ saying that the US said it was the Ukrainians that done it, is well, to put it bluntly, it is a right wing rag unfit for wrapping fish in.
It is bad for the health of the dead fish.
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 6:26 PM
@ piglet, -, Clive
As you are new here, some Cliff Notes.
Stick to your handle piglet.
You should leave the URL form box field empty, unless you want to show your own site.
You should leave the Email form box field empty.
Avoid Preview. There are bugs.
Always wait at least 5 minutes and force
a refresh. That still may not work, but I can almost guarantee that if you fail to do so, it will appear that your comment disappeared because you do not see it.
As you can see, and I can see, you did wait 5 minutes, but did not force refresh.
Phase of moon and time of day may also be factors in the behaviour of the blog software.
This is your blog software 101 course.
There is more in this curriculum.
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 8:12 PM
@ ALL
re: Escape from Russia
Become a conscript, go to Belarus via cattle car transport. Probably the fastest way to escape.
Russian intel is so bad these days. Probably intentionally so because they know what is really going on, and want to escape themselves.
A group of First Graders wired on candy can figure out what is going on. Putin can not. Other than he now knows the Kerch rail bridge is not usable.
Hint: There are bridges in northern Ukraine. I may have used the wrong tense in that sentence.
Ray Dillinger • October 10, 2022 8:23 PM
Has anyone else been seeing 3g signals here and there since 3g service stopped? I’ve been carrying around my old phone – still useful on wifi networks at home and work, and I’ve been keeping it around until I transfer everything to the new one. Occasionally it thinks it has 3g service and I immediately airplane-mode the darn thing.
Someone running fake cell towers for whatever reason failed to update them when 3g service stopped and therefore became blindingly obvious?
Or possibly someone is fishing for people who’ve lost service but haven’t realized it because, like me, are usually on wifi and their 3g phone continues to work?
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 10:08 PM
@ Ray Dillinger
Keep your old phone for WIFI usage. Pull the SIM card, but also put it in Airplane mode. Turn off BT and GPS also. Disable WIFI unless you are using it. Your battery life will be amazing.
Do not do the transfer you have been thinking about. Keep the old for WIFI, do not use the new for WIFI. Use the new for just phone and text. Always use the WIFI route if it suffices in your use case. Carry two phones at all times. One as phone, one for WIFI. It is not difficult. It is for your security. The battery life on each wiil be better. Only use the new if needed when you do not have WIFI available, and you absolutely must get on internet. In my case, that only hapoens if I am caught out during a severe storm. Otherwise, it is not an emergency. My cellco should give me a huge rebate every month because I rarely use any data of my data plan, Not even close. They used to try to give me an incentive every month, that they would roll over my unused data plan to the next month. Wasted effort on their part. They do not even bother me anymore with that nonsense.
Ignore the go-faster stripes.
3G is not dead yet in US. End of year. They are probably trying to get people to upgrade to the 5G crap. Confuse the user.
The main reason to get people off of 3G is because 4G and 5G is VOIP, which is simple to MITM and record. The old 2G that is left is machines, there is not a human user there to intercept. If there is a user playing the machine, they will have a 4G or 5G phone these days.
I guess you have figured out by this point, that this comment is not being posted via cellco.
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 10:48 PM
W -, Clive
Interesting
Interesting that my earlier comment referencing this was disaapeared.
Let’s see if this survives without my commentary and keywords, Suspect it will.
‘https://nitter.net/noclador/status/1579545243183374337
SpaceLifeForm • October 10, 2022 11:34 PM
@ Clive
Drone WIFI attack
This movie seems familiar. ARP, ARP, ARP! This is a terrorist dog.
‘https://nitter.net/Laughing_Mantis/status/1579550302172508161#m
During the incident response they discovered that the user’s who MAC address was used to gain partial access to their WIFI was also logged in from their home several miles away
‘https://www.4armed.com/blog/phantom-menace-weaponising-drones/
lurker • October 10, 2022 11:46 PM
@SLF
the YT one was a goner, even with the double dash, ie. YT pulled it quick.
This new one shows it’s doubletrack, well the other track should be OK? [insert lampoon emoji of choice]
It’s been 50 years since I rode a Russian train …
Clive Robinson • October 11, 2022 12:10 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Re : Fish swam over the dam.
“Interesting that my earlier comment referencing this was disaapeared.”
Mine in semi-humorous vein about dead fish effects likewise.
Clive Robinson • October 11, 2022 1:51 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,
Re : Drone WIFI attack
“This movie seems familiar. ARP, ARP, ARP! This is a terrorist dog.”
It’s in the Conan Doyle book[1] and numerous films made there of 😉
Well for years now I’ve been warning,
1, Drones have lift capability for a short while.
2, Drones can sit/squat in low power mode for hours.
3, SDR is something that can not be ignored by defenders.
4, Understanding SDR capability can take a couple of years to come up to speed, so needs to be invested in now.
5, Drug smugglers have been doing boarder runs and prison runs with modified drones.
And more recently,
6, Terrorists and Ukranian defenders have changed the face of conventional battle field tactics with them.
7, Ukranian and those supporting them have turned drones into very cheap instrument heads for SigInt.
It’s that last one that should worry all those defenders, where they know that managment alow or condone “Shadow ICT” with BYOD etc[2]. As I’ve mentioned the radio horizon at 300m over flat terrain is ~60km most SDR’s can work down to -126dBm for a 12kHz VHF through microwave channel thus can pick up the -20dBm or above signals from “Shadow ICT devices” whilst being out of sight and hearing of the defenders. You can make simple broadband transmission line antennas like the discone or rhombic out of very thin spring steel “piano/guitar” wire you can safely mount under even quite small drones. You don’t need to use Raspberry Pi’s with their near 400mA draw, there are smaller lighter more power efficient “full Linux” “gum-stick” style SBC controlers that will run of Radio-Control LiPo batteries and give you two USB slots (one for a WiFi network card the other for an SDR). This way all the “grunt work” can be done by laptops etc. So for a a couple of thousand dollars you can now have a capability not to disimilar to the early Boeing Rivet Joint aircraft that cost Governments billions.
Speaking of cost… as for the $15k cost mentioned in the Tweets, that is either people who do not know what they are doing, or for some reason don’t care.
If the former they are probably tracable via the equipment sales.
What made me smile though was the refrence to Fluke equipment… That tells me that the defenders were not exactly top notch either, just had some spare money in the budget at some point.
The stuff I use is “hand crafted” for various reasons.
[1] In the story the race horse Silver Blaze has disappeared and Inspector Gregory is talking to Sherlock Holmes,
Holmes: “To the curious
incident of the dog in the night-time.”
Gregory: “The dog did nothing
in the night-time.”
Holmes: “That was the
curious incident.”
When many people talk about it they incorrectly think the dog did not bark because it had been drugged by the opium in the curry the stable boy had been given. The real reason as Conan Doyle knew and thus had Sherlock know is,
“Most guard dogs don’t bark at their masters…”
[2] Remember all your mobile and Smart devices can be “heard in space” with little difficulty as far as range is concerned. The main difficulty with doing so being dealing with multiple signals on the same frequency. As far as current technology is concerned this can be overcome by phased array antennas that are around 6m by 6m that fold up “origami style” for launch. Things have come on quite a bit since 2021,
Winter • October 11, 2022 2:42 AM
@Clive, SLF
It’s that last one that should worry all those defenders, where they know that managment alow or condone “Shadow ICT” with BYOD etc[2].
We need BYOD that do Wired calls 😉
Why use airwaves when you can do VOIP and IP over wires.
Clive Robinson • October 11, 2022 8:59 AM
@ Winter, ALL,
Re : Wireless Inside.
“Why use airwaves when you can do VOIP and IP over wires.”
Because it more or less comes,
“Built in as standard”
In some way or another these days, and there appears to be little you can do about it.
Even if it’s not the manufacturer, putting a “wireless implant” in most equipment these days is not actually that dificult with chips so small you can make a PCB smaller than a rechargable “Coin Cell”.
I’ve got some sitting my draw that started off as a design for “nano-sats” based on an earlier bugging device designed to fit into smoke detectors.
The last “upgrade” was to add MEMS devices to make the PCB even smaller.
But if you have the urge, you can buy a compleate cased 2G mobile phone including a keypad that is about 2.5cm long and 1.25cm wide that has the smaller USB connector. They are easy to hide as certain “Prisons” are finding out…
fib • October 11, 2022 10:49 AM
@ lurker
I might have not been looking before, but these last couple of years I’ve seen too many low pressure systems around 60 South with central surface pressure of below 940.
Indeed, as we speak I can see extensive areas of low pressure between -60 /-70 latitudes[0]. But they don’t draw my attention very often because this pattern is a common feature in the Southern Ocean.
[0]See in h*tps://earth.nullschool.net
Winter • October 11, 2022 10:58 AM
@Clive
Even if it’s not the manufacturer, putting a “wireless implant” in most equipment these days is not actually that dificult with chips so small you can make a PCB smaller than a rechargable “Coin Cell”.
That is a different threat model that is orthogonal to BYOD policies.
fib • October 11, 2022 2:26 PM
@ SpaceLifeForm
Re: Hurricanes
Remnants of Julia forked into two storms in two basins. This is noteworthy. Are we entering the era of the “transbasin” hurricanes?
Check out NHC.
SpaceLifeForm • October 11, 2022 4:12 PM
@ fib
Re: Hurricanes
I would not consider it a fork. Julia may have helped knock down some upper level winds, which may have helped Karl form. Julia has fallen apart.
Starting to see Karl rotation, so it does not look good.
‘https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/sector_band.php?sat=G16§or=gm&band=GEOCOLOR&length=24
Where will Karl track? Get out your Sharpie. Somewhere near New Orleans looks possible.
Clive Robinson • October 11, 2022 5:24 PM
@ SpaceLifeForm, fib, ALL
Re: Hurricanes
“Where will Karl track? Get out your Sharpie. Somewhere near New Orleans looks possible.”
How many “big winds” can the south of the US tolerate in a season?
It certainly looks like the number is going up. Two things are almost certainly going to become true in the very near future,
1, Insurance will be unafordable by by far the majority in the South in “areas deemed at risk” by the insurance companies.
2, Certain political “pass the parcel” games will start with certain State politicians not providing “emergancy funding” and “Federal Funding” cut or removed by the same politicians.
Worse US building / zoning codes for homes in such at risk areas general prevents storm proofed housing being built.
Even moving north as far ad New York is no guarantee you are not gotng to get wiped out in one way or another.
For some reason much US Building especially of infrastructure is not just unreliable, but very short lived and not even close to being properly minimally maintained.
The US is not the number one place in the world for hurricanes by a long way, yet of all first world countries it is the one most effected, that also all things considerd spends the least…
Look at the US power grid on the South West side of the nation, can you actually think of a worse way to do it?
Something I urge people in the US to think about as a matter of urgency because their lives realy do depend on it, and easily avoidable deaths are always a tragedy. Not just for their families, friends, colleagues and all that knew them, but for the whole country.
Clive Robinson • October 11, 2022 5:37 PM
@ Ismar,
You asked a question of me a few days back.
Well here is the latest update,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63211743
I would expect comment from the IMF very soon as this is going to have wider range effects, and could be seen later as the first step to a global recession (that is now almost unavoidable for other deeper structural reasons).
JonKnowsNothing • October 11, 2022 7:25 PM
@ Clive, @ SpaceLifeForm, fib, ALL
re: US building & zoning codes and infrastructure
While evaluating the impacts of weather on the USA, there are a few extra things to add into the equations.
1) There is no overall uniform building code… for the most part. There are building codes about construction and there maybe codes about placement but each city, county, state has their own variations.
I may have mentioned prior, that where I am in California, the rules are greatly different between the Cities and the County, here.
In The South, often there are no codes or restrictions at all. You can drop a cracking tower in the middle of downtown if you own the land.
Some types of construction may come under Federal laws but our SCOTUS has recently gutted some of the Federal regulations that apply to States or specific industries (mostly located in specific states).
2) Insurance. If it comes under FLOOD, the US Government issues the insurance. If it’s wind, rain, fire etc. that’s normally under private corporations.
There is talk about blocking rebuilding in some flood areas but there are 2 different groups involved (there is also talk of the same in California due to fires):
Group A) Needs insurance to get a bank loan to rebuild and then convert it to a mortgage.
US Banks do not loan on “home infrastructure”: wells, septic, electrical connections. These have no future value. Homes can increase in value (price) and are declared Tax Assets. You may get a construction short term loan, but it must be converted into an acceptable home mortgage with the proper Permit of Occupancy.
If you are poor, unemployed or disabled you won’t qualify for rebuilding loans.
Group B) Rebuilds with Cash-in-Pocket. They need nothing from the financial industry. This group is quite used to having their mega-mansions on the shoreline washed away in ultra high tides. The rebuilding crews know what to do and by the next vacation All is Well in the Garden.
3) Public Infrastructure. Not too long ago there was an exchange about Deferred Maintenance. Everything built in the USA is primarily based on Deferred Maintenance followed by demolition and rebuilding. Our system is based on Use It Til It Doesn’t Work followed by Use It Until It Falls Down, then tear it down and rebuild.
Unfortunately, the costs now associated with rebuilding are so great, no one will fund them.
ex: nearly every election cycle in California there is a Bond Issue on the ballot to “repair schools”. They certainly need it. It’s every few years and the schools never really “improve”. It’s a never ending bucket of Deferred Maintenance. It’s hard enough to get even minimal maintenance passed but the costs of fixing every school across the state at the same time to near-new condition is such a huge number, it’s easier to decommission a derelict school, sell the grounds to a housing developer and rebuild a new school using mobile-classrooms-on wheels.
Many localities took their COVID relief funds, designed to help people during lockdowns, and spent them on football fields and sports programs (mostly men’s sports).
4) As we know from The COVID Bank of Mom and Dad, there isn’t much desire to fix things that are in areas destined for unspoken Asset Transfer. It’s more common than many think. Removing or preventing repairs on infrastructure is an “accepted” reason to displace people. (1)
Where displaced people are supposed to go, is a question because we have passed laws to make it difficult or impossible to resettle.
The USA isn’t the only one with these sorts of laws, the UK and EU target the nomadic peoples of Europe, UK and Ireland.
In the case of hurricanes, fires, and drought it will displace a lot of people and Disaster Capitalism will take over.
===
1) RL tl;dr
During a hurricane some 10-15 years ago, many people in a small town evacuated. Much of the town was severely damaged by falling trees. The nearby river overflowed from the storm surge and tons and tons of fish were stranded on the highways when the water receded.
The City went to all the empty houses and not only shut off the electrical meters, they yanked them off the wall. Ostensibly to prevent fires.
The City then required all the buildings that had their meters yanked off the walls, be upgraded to the latest building codes and required new permits to reinstall the meters on the walls.
Cost of doing the electrical remediation on a small house: ~$30,000USD at that time.
If the meters were not installed in a defined time period, the house was Red Tagged for demolition.
You could pay a company to do or pay the City $3,000USD to do it. Lot clean up was not included.
A simple survey of which homes had their electrical meters pulled off, not surprisingly followed the areas of low income housing.
SpaceLifeForm • October 11, 2022 7:26 PM
@ fib, Clive
Karl is official now. I was speculating on that earlier, it was just me calling it as me eyes seas it.
Just Tropical Storm status currently.
It will become clear on sat in about 12 hours. And then with better data from the hurricane hunters, the track will become better defined.
It does not look good. Probably Cat 1 by then.
‘https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?start#contents
SpaceLifeForm • October 11, 2022 8:39 PM
@ fib, Clive
re: Karl
Already, I see that NOAA computer models and my brain are in disagreement.
I hope the NOAA thinking is correct, btw.
But, I have observed a problem over decades now, that the WX computer models still give too much weight to historical data.
And with global warming, and climate change, my recommendation is to under-weight the historical data.
But, what do I know? I have been paying attention and connecting dots since the days of WX forecasting that had no sat data.
Nothing. Just historical data. And going outside and observing. Maybe smell the air. Maybe watch the clouds.
Temp, pressure, winds, humidity, time of day, time of year.
That was the extent of the data available to create a forecast.
The WX computer models should under-weight historical WX data due to global warming and climate change. The patterns have changed. The historical data can screw up the model.
But, what do I know?
Clive Robinson • October 12, 2022 3:27 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,
Re : Past, Prrsent and Future.
“Already, I see that NOAA computer models and my brain are in disagreement.”
Which is a good sign, as it shows you can think and predict based on previous observations, in the form of a hypothesis.
If you remember with TS/Hurricane Ian I said that the predicted North West to North North West path was not right and I expexted it to go more eastwards and further up the coast before landfall. Which is what it did (but not as much as I thought it might be capable of).
As you note,
“But, I have observed a problem over decades now, that the WX computer models still give too much weight to historical data.”
In part because they were designed on hypotheses from more than a life time ago, and have had change instilled over time by data put through them that caused variance that became predictable.
Thus they are “behind the curve” by several years.
This is not necessarily a bad thing as it’s in effect a “negative feed back model” that by an integrative process gives an inhetantly stable set of predictions. That is they tend to follow the average.
However when things change more rapidly and average has a lot less “future meaning” it can produce errors that become more significant.
Thus we come to the thorny issue,
“And with global warming, and climate change”
The imporyant term in this case is “change” or more correctly “the rate of change”. The weather tends to be episodic and follow Space Weather and it’s cycles. Which is based on two factors on Earth’s side
1, Orbital mechanics.
2, The lag of Earths energy storage mechanisms of “land sea and sky”.
Whilst the first very slowly and more or less predictably unwinds, the second by measurment is very much changing in the short term.
That is the change is potentially getting faster both in random peaks and underlying trend.
Thus the integration factor of the WX models may be too long for the current and future rate of change.
JonKnowsNothing • October 12, 2022 3:39 AM
@ Clive, @ SpaceLifeForm, fib, ALL
re: Deferred Civic Maintenance
A MSM report on the City of Toronto, Canada, indicates that the state of deterioration of the City’s infrastructure is so bad, a group of Artists-Satires has been adding “gallery style labels” to items, as if they are modern art.
Historically, cities that decay beyond habitation are called “ruins” and are subject to “archeology digs” which ponder “why did the population that lived here leave this place?”
===
Guerrilla satirists skewer Toronto mayor by turning urban decay into public art
Plaques from the satirical project AusterityTO highlight Toronto public buildings and elements of broken infrastructure as if they were works of art by the city’s mayor..
… gallery-style commentary – “asks the viewer to imagine what it could be, and to ponder why it isn’t”.
ht tps://www.theguardian.c om/world/2022/oct/11/toronto-austerityto-public-art-mayor-election
(url fractured)
JonKnowsNothing • October 12, 2022 4:06 AM
@Clive, @All
re: UK scandals that keep on giving…
2 long running UK Scandals are still.. well.. scandaling along..
First Up:
The UK Post Office wrongful convictions of 736 people due to failure of Fujitsu Mainframe to add and subtract correctly.
MSM reports that the UK Post Office is withholding 30,000 pages of evidence from current attempt at an inquiry. It’s 20 years of scandal and running.
Second Up:
The very long running multi-generational scandal of UK Police Unit that groomed women in certain targeted groups for sexual exploitation in order to spy on those groups. Hundreds of UK Met Officers were involved for decades, some fathering children with their targets.
One of the de-masked officers is undercover officer Mark Kennedy, not only worked in the UK targeting women there, but also worked in 14 countries included 3 German States (2004-2009).
… since 1968, British police sent at least 139 undercover police officers to spy on more than 1,000 political groups in covert deployments that usually lasted four years.
The “new news” here is that the UK ran their SpyCop programs in other countries with the permission of those authorities.
European police have collaborated to infiltrate political groups as part of an extensive surveillance operation.
Kennedy, a member of a covert British police unit, spent seven years spying on environmental and leftwing activists until he was unmasked in 2010.
===
Search
ht tps://www.theguardian.c om/business/2022/oct/11/post-office-accused-of-withholding-documents-from-it-scandal-inquiry
ht tps://www.theguardian.c om/uk-news/2022/oct/11/british-police-spy-unlawfully-operated-in-germany-court-finds
(urls fractured)
Clive Robinson • October 12, 2022 5:14 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing, ALL,
Re : Long running UK scandals.
“2 long running UK Scandals are still.. well.. scandaling along..”
If only they were the only two…
In the UK potential scandals do not become scandals because the MSM is mainly overly compliant to the wishes of power. Be it from government or via the courts via money then contempt of court proceadings (see side story on assange case with regards a retired UK Diplomat).
If keeping things out of the press does not work then other measures are used these are lumped together under the term “Kicking it into the long grass”… This is most often as “death by enquiry”, the government finds a compliant legal figure (look up “lord whitewash”, or Vanessa Barister) who wants a bauble such ad a knighthood or prestigious post or both and they will “Jim Will Fix It” (catch phrase from “Sir Jimmy Savile OBE KCSG, “union buster for maggie” and preditor suspected of necrophilia and other perversions another scandal still running).
The thing about “enquiries” is they realy have little “standing” as they are not “Courts” thus compulsion and aboding by legal standards are well not realy there… Also “enquiry findings” are confidential, and even the summaries and conclusions can be held for consideration to get released “On a good day for bad news” (another scandal to look up).
I could go on at great length, but… As the government and others in power know,
“The public attention is a beast with a taste for fresh meat and blood that flows”
Thus they just have to keep the lid on things till it’s “Yesterdays fish and chips paper”[1] or there is another “opposition” / “Somebody elses” scandle that is “fresh” and can thus be preferentially promoted and their scandalous story put back on page seven or later after the “funny pages” and “Op-Eds” few read and before the “classifieds” that have the sports pages after them… What is sometimes termed as “burying the story” as it would be close to the obituaries. It’s seen as “The British Way” which also included killing Monarchs with opium such that they would die at the right time of day to be first anounced on “The London Times” front page…
[1] Once “upon a time” the frying of fish and chips in a shop in Britain was classified as “an offensive practice” subject to both licence and strong regulation. However that did not in any way give food safety… It was common practice to wrap the fish and chips in “newspaper” supposadly aquired from nearby newsagents that had not sold “the papers” the day before etc. However back then “printers ink” was made with two waste products “Chimney Soot” and “drained diesel oil” both highly carcinogenic substances…
Clive Robinson • October 12, 2022 5:24 AM
@ Winter,
Re : BYOD / shadow ICT
Sorry this is a delayed response, I forgot to hit “submit” yesterday before getting off of public transport.
“That is a different threat model that is orthogonal to BYOD policies.”
I’m not sure “orthogonal” is the right word.
The simple fact is non organization equipment has domain issues. Who decides on who has rights to open and inspect a piece of equipment.
You own it but the IT Sec guys say they want to open it up and inspect it. So breaking guarantee seals and voiding waranty you have… is the least of it.
MarkH • October 12, 2022 12:31 PM
Re: Kerch Bridge Attack
In my region, a highway bridge of modest length was damaged by fire some years ago. It was a very standard construction of reinforced concrete; the damage was solely due to a petroleum fuel fire.
Engineers assessed the bridge as too damaged to carry loads or be repaired; replacement took months.
I presume that the Kerch blast ruptured the nearby railroad tank cars, and that the burning of some of their leaked fuel did serious damage to the rail bridge, which is of much greater military importance than the road bridges.
Today, I saw a claim that the bridge bomb had a mass of 22 tons (I don’t know where this came from, but that’s a reasonable payload for an articulated truck.)
Ted • October 12, 2022 12:35 PM
On October 19, the White House will hold a workshop on a labelling program for consumer IoT cybersecurity.
About 50 groups will convene. The voluntary effort is expected to launch in spring 2023.
A WH Fact Sheet says the plan is to start with common products that carry high-risk, like routers and home cameras. The administration is working with the EU to align on standards.
https://www.cyberscoop.com/white-house-to-unveil-internet-of-things-labeling/
JonKnowsNothing • October 12, 2022 12:53 PM
@MarkH, @All
re: Damaged Bridges and Overpass Flyways
California has no shortage of damaged bridges and crumbled overpasses. Lots of major earthquakes have brought down giant portions of the highway and bridge systems.
They all got repaired or retrofitted eventually. How safe the repairs are won’t really be known until another major earthquake hits those regions and we see what’s still standing.
One well known earthquake, a section of a major bridge crossing the San Francisco Bay disconnected and fell from the upper deck onto the lower deck. The failed section didn’t cause direct deaths but at least one car was unaware of the failed section and people were killed when the car fell into the opening.
During another major earthquake in the LA Basin, the overpass flyways collapsed and many lives were lost during the event. More lives were lost later because drivers were not aware that the sections had collapsed as they drove off the standing parts.
What is interesting is how fast the repairs were done. The LA Basin repairs were done very quickly. LA is the transport hub for California. The repairs in the Bay Area took much longer and the bridge repair took a very long time. iirc(badly) there were concerns about the entire structural integrity of the bridge.
Repairs to roads and access to other cities and towns along with repairing infrastructure like water and sewer systems, took a very long time. The economic value of the city and the city demographics was an indicator of when repairs were done or not done. Some small farming cities didn’t get repaired for years.
The Big Bridge will get repaired or replaced. The small towns and villages and farm lands won’t get the same focus.
lurker • October 12, 2022 2:41 PM
Monitoring the network detects kinetic attacks on infrastructure
Winter • October 12, 2022 3:46 PM
@MarkH
It was a very standard construction of reinforced concrete; the damage was solely due to a petroleum fuel fire.
I understood that if the steel in the reinforcement loses its tension if it gets too hot, then the concrete becomes less reinforced. But there are other aspects of concrete strength that are affected.
Experimental study of fire damage to reinforced concrete tunnel slabs
‘https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379711221002460
Moderate railway tunnel fires result in an average reduction of 15–20% in concrete strength.
I think a loss of 15% in strenght could be relevant for the safety of a bridge arch. And the pictures of the Kerch bridge fire looked worse than “moderate”.
SpaceLifeForm • October 12, 2022 4:24 PM
@ MarkH, ALL
re: Kerch bridge attack
I do not know where you read 22 tons.
I am not the only one thinking thermite.
Just 2 tons would be sufficient to launch burning thermite into the air, where the winds would direct it onto the train.
When I said, “Amazing coincidence”, I left out the sarcasm tag. This was a carefully planned operation, that required good intel, timing, and proper wind conditions. The target was the rail bridge via the fuel cars.
Also, consider the possibility that this was an op by Russians that want to stop this war. The truck came from Russia. There would be ammonium nitrate and thermite available on that side of the bridge. Plenty. No problem.
RIP Mahir Yusubov
That Russia thinks they will be able to repair the rail bridge in 1.5 to 2 months tells you they are deluding themselves.
‘https://nitter.net/i/status/1579480666282287104
Tyry estimates that the explosives used “may have weighed between one and two thousand kilograms” (2,200-4,400 lb) but was “not a conventional mixture of fuel oil and ammonium nitrate, but something of much higher quality”.
He also points out that it wasn’t just a big fireball, but was followed by “flaming torches in the air … This suggests the use of combustible metals such as aluminium, magnesium or thermite to amplify the explosion.”
Clive Robinson • October 12, 2022 4:27 PM
@ MarkH, ALL,
Re : liquid fuel fires and concrete.
“It was a very standard construction of reinforced concrete; the damage was solely due to a petroleum fuel fire.”
First of few liquid fuels, burn as liquids but vapours. When I was young I used to do a silly trick with a liquid fuel I would pour it on my bare hands and set light to it and chase people with my flaming hands. Providing you are careful and don’t have hair on your arms, you won’t get burnt, or even feel particularly warm.
You can also if you are quick put a lit match out in a saucer of petrol for the same reason
“The liquid fuel does not burn, it’s the mixture of the vapour and oxygen or nitrous thay does.”
So a fuel fire “on concrete” does little damage as there is little heating of the concrete.
Now concrete even without reinforcing comes in more flavours than those magic “gob stopper” sweets that were once popular.
The thing is concrete does not like to be dry… If it is it can start to crumble, worse some has fast cure chemicals added and they cause all sorts of issues.
So heating concrete up above 60C can cause problems and above 100C many mixes start to break down.
Thus even a small fuel fire under a concrete beam that burns “low and slow for a moderate to long time” will destroy concrete by driving the moisture out and carbon dioxide in. In effect turning part of it by the process of “rapid carbonation” in to the same chemical as sea shells –calcium carbonate– but without the mechanical strength.
Concrete like the calcium in bones lacks any real kind of strength. What makes it strong is having slightly flexible reinforcment. In bones you can boil it out as gelatine, and what is left of the bones will when dry crumble in your hands. In concrete it’s realy very similar, re-bar is semi-flexible and goves the right sort of support to the concrete. However the problem with iron, is all the chemicals it reacts with not just weaken it to the point of dust, they also make it swell up, thus cracking the concreye easily and destroying any strength thus structural integrity rather quickly. In some places they have decided to not use iron based re-bar but external sleeves that can be maintained.
However for all our science and technology, we apparently still can not make cement that will last over two millennia like the Romans did…
vas pup • October 12, 2022 4:50 PM
Court win for man fired for not keeping webcam on
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63203945
Bravo Dutch Judge! Good example to follow around.
Clive Robinson • October 12, 2022 4:58 PM
@ Bruce, and the usual suspects,
Re : Are any psychology results real?
I suspect most have heard that supposed fundemental results from psychology experiments can not be repeated or produce the opposite effect.
This has become so common that some have said that cheating must be rampant…
Only it’s not, there is a very definate and puzzeling phenomenon where repeating the tests in exactly the same way over time the results change…
Well it appears there is a new one on the block…
There was a theory in the late 1970’s that depressed people had a more realistic outlook on life. Not only did it make intuative sense, experimental testing in 1979 confirmed it… It became a fundemental concept in not just many areas of research but also in the direction health care would go…
It also pops up in security personality and selection criteria…
Well re-testing has slung a spoke in the wheel,
SpaceLifeForm • October 12, 2022 6:53 PM
@ MarkH, ALL
The “22 ton” figure is in multiple news reports (though it probably should be tonnes, not tons), and is attributed to Russia’s FSB
And there you go. FSB. Whether it is tonnes or tons, it is close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades. Or bridge attacks.
Did you see the video of the inspection of the truck before it made it on it’s final journey?
They open the back, look inside, all good. Seconds.
You may be wondering why I say that.
I pay attention and connect dots.
MarkH • October 12, 2022 7:19 PM
@SpaceLifeForm:
Considering that (a) the Kerch bridge was probably transited by several thousand trucks per day (as many as one every few dozen seconds), and (b) Russia’s cynicism and slovenliness are difficult to comprehend if you haven’t been there, I find nothing surprising in the super-quick “inspection” recorded on video.
The group carrying out the attack surely had access to the experience of at least one truck driver who crossed the bridge frequently, and so knew the typical process.
At any rate, a commonsense precaution would be to camouflage the warload as one or more common types of cargo. I see no obstacle to doing so, even for a bomb of many tons.
Practical camouflage wouldn’t withstand an intensive inspection, but that’s not necessary. Being good enough to pass 90+ percent of the time can get the job done.
SpaceLifeForm • October 12, 2022 7:40 PM
@ fib, Clive
re: Karl
Late yesterday, NOAA was thinking that Karl would head west. Earlier today, they were thinking it would do a hairpin turn (their words), and head south.
Now, they are saying it is moving north, but will still turn south, and then will fall apart.
Sorry NOAA, but that is not what I am seeing. I do not believe that this high pressure ridge that the models say will form over northern Mexico is going to be as strong as you believe. I am not seeing that strong of upper wind shear from the southwest. In fact, if this high pressure ridge does build, it may actually reduce the sw wind shear.
If this high pressure ridge does build, it may just kick Karl towards the Florida curb.
I hope I am wrong. On sat, I am seeing almost an eye. It will fade overnight.
SpaceLifeForm • October 13, 2022 12:37 AM
@ fib, Clive
re: Karl
Over 5 hours ago, NOAA said it was moving N-NE at 3 mph, but expected to move S-SE. But, last check from hurricane hunters, they say not moving, no more strengthening. It now does look like it is falling apart on sat. It looks like Campeche will get a good soaking if it gets there.
SpaceLifeForm • October 13, 2022 1:26 AM
re: Kerch bridge
More pics.
Note that he thinks Aluminum powder, whereas I think Thermite. It may have been both. Scroll down to see more recent pics. There will be no more trucks for some time. Even the span still standing is not safe for much load. One lane, one direction at a time. Spaced apart.
Wait until Russia learns about Supply Chain problems. These bridge spans will not be functional until some time after Russia pulls out.
The trucks are so backed up now, that they are staging at an unused airport.
You know how airport food is. Those truck drivers will have none! No restrooms, and no bar! What a Country! Read in Yakov Smirnoff accent.
‘https://nitter.net/OAlexanderDK/status/1579188044388655104#m
Winter • October 13, 2022 2:06 AM
@SLF
Note that he thinks Aluminum powder, whereas I think Thermite. It may have been both.
In high school chemistry class we made thermite with iron oxide (rust) and Aluminum powder.
😉
Clive Robinson • October 13, 2022 3:05 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Re : aluminium dust.
It is added to explosive mixtures as is powderd PTFE to obtain certain desirable characteristics. This includes commercial explosives. Such addatives are sometimes called “flare material” which suggests somebody who made the explosive knew what they were doing (I mentioned this the other day).
Thermite by definition is not an explosive it just produces incredible amounts of thermal energy.
Interestingly if you burn aluminium powder in air it actually causes a decrease in air volume as the 20% oxygen is removed and very tightly bound to the aluminium. Thus you get a high over preasure from the dispersal explosion followed by a negative preasure as the aluminium burns followed by an incredible blast wave. Thus creating a much more destructive push and suck preasure gradient. Hence the “vaccum bomb” name used these days for thermobaric “bunker buster” MOAB and the like (They used to be called “Fuel Air Explosives”(FAE) back when I had to know about them).
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60571395
This article has photos of actuall FAE thernobaric weapons exploding,
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/explained/vacuum-bomb-thermobaric-how-do-they-work/
fib • October 13, 2022 8:09 AM
@ SLF
I would not consider it a fork. Julia may have helped knock down some upper level winds, which may have helped Karl form. Julia has fallen apart.
By the time I posted my comment there were two invests: one in the Campeche bay [which evolved into Karl] and another low ṕrobability one in the Pacific, which dissipated shortly after my post. It really looked like two storms were about to form from the Remnants of Julia.
&ers • October 13, 2022 3:14 PM
@Clive @SpaceLifeForm @ALL
Was this here already somewhere? Have been away for a while…
hxxps://www.vice.com/en/article/y3pnkw/us-military-bought-mass-monitoring-augury-team-cymru-browsing-email-data
&ers • October 13, 2022 4:12 PM
@ALL
Yep, it has been mentioned in one SQUID, but i’m still
sad that @Bruce hasn’t made it to a separate posting.
It’s important.
“Beyond his day job as CEO of Team Cymru, Rabbi Rob Thomas also sits on the board of the Tor Project”.
Wolf in sheep’s clothing.
lurker • October 13, 2022 4:30 PM
Ethiopian students boycott exams in protest at anti-cheating measures
&ers • October 13, 2022 5:10 PM
@Clive @SpaceLifeForm @ALL
Cyberpunk – high tech, low life 😉
hxxps://nitter.net/Militarylandnet/status/1575396903252025351
Clive Robinson • October 13, 2022 5:23 PM
@ &ers, SpaceLifeForm, ALL,
“Was this here already somewhere? Have been away for a while…”
Not sure, but I don’t think so, though I am aware of it from an entirely different direction.
Like you I’ve sort of been away for the last third of Sept and sort of still am today[1]… I hope in your case it was for enjoyable reasons.
But back to “Team Cymru” and it’s “Augury” system[2]. The use of which is shall we say mixed purpose to put it mildly.
As Team Cymru claim Augury definately has use in cyber-security with regards seeing and tracking potential cyber-attacks, post, present and future.
However that is only a tiny part of it’s “potential” because it tracks a very high percentage of every network connection from source to destination and can easily be used to follow through VPNs and Tor and some other supposadly anonymising networks such as mix-nets (but not “fleet-broadcast” if correctly set up).
The reason for this pitifully easy tracing is “simple traffic analysis”. It’s all to easy because the anonymising system nodes do not have “store and forward”, “Packet order changing”, “Channel stuffing” and care very much more about “low latency” and network efficiency than anonymity of the users…
As I’m known to say, it’s all a question of,
“Security -v- Efficiency”
That is as a generalised rule, unless you realy know what you are doing, the more efficient you make a system the greater the bandwidth through which it leaks confidential information.
We know the SigInt agencies such as the NSA and GCHQ do the same thing as “Team Cymru” in terms of “collect it all” of network traffic flow.
What we do not know is how “Team Cymru” post process the billions of daily network traffic records it collects. Or more importantly who it hands them on too to do post processing and “value added” activities to help it keep it’s hands clean. Imagine if you can what an organisation like say Palantir could do with such records and the other user data databases they keep including all those Law Enforcment and Inteligence Agency and health records etc it holds… Yup it starts to get very frightening very quickly.
As I’ve told people for years the Internet is not in the slightest bit anonymous if you can see the packet flow, when they happen, and how long the traffic is, just makes it oh so much simpler…
Oh and one of the reasons I don’t do “Email” or a whole host of other activities, including running apps, especially those supposadly secure apps that are anything but…
[1] Unfortunately in my case it’s been due to illness that has totally sapped my energy both physically and mentally so I’ve spent nearly three weeks more or less bed bound with even small movments causing pain in the joints and muscles and headaches that make “brain freeze” look desirable. Apparently it’s some kind of,
“Back to school bug doing the rounds…”
Any one who either has had it, is suffering from it, or gets it, has my sympathies.
[2] You might not know but “augury” is one of those words that people who make verbal puns like because it effectively has multiple meanings… An “augur” with a “U” is an officiating person in acient Rome who watched the flights of birds and divined the future from them… Thus it was OK to look out the window see a flight of birds and instead of going to work go back to bed… However the word “auger” with an “E” is pronounced the same as “augur”. An auger is a carpenters tool originally used to make the hole in wheels for the axle. Thus it is also connected with “navel” as in “gazing in” or “centering” for spiritual and medative reasons. But as a tool the auger looks kind of like a large corkscrew with a tapered screw to center it. A modern auger has six main parts, in order they are the,
Tang, shank, twist, bit, spurs, and screw.
The “tang” goes in the chuck of the drill or brace, and the “shank” can be of any length depending on how far down / deep you wish to “auger” or cut the hole. The “twist” is the part that sort of looks like a corkscrew and it’s job is to lift the material cut by the “bit”. To try to ensure a “straight cut” the outer edges of the cutting bit or working bit have razor like “spurs” forming part of a tube that bites into the wood before the bit. The “screw” is in the center of the bit and coaxial to the twist, shank and tang, it’s job is to ensure accurate placment of the spurs and cutting bit. As you will possibly know the majority of those six part names are also euphemisms, some for undesirable activitirs and others for certain biological parts and activities… Hence the opportunities for “double meanings” are rife.
homer simpson • October 13, 2022 11:37 PM
Tails Linux version 5.5 Downloads:
SpaceLifeForm • October 14, 2022 1:11 AM
@ &ers
Interesting. I note that even though there were some saying that the pics should have been blurred, it is stale data these days. I suspect this was released just to poke the bear. As in, we have useful internet connectivity and yours is 2G basically. But, now we have Musk asking DoD to pony up more money.
Winter • October 14, 2022 2:48 AM
@SLF
I note that even though there were some saying that the pics should have been blurred, it is stale data these days.
Note that most of the people present have covered their faces. So they were well aware that they were photographed and took precautions. This means that they most likely have also cleaned the place of things they did not want to let the world know.
It is very likely that the computer screens showed fake data.
SpaceLifeForm • October 14, 2022 10:10 PM
re: Nordstream pipelines
When you know the intel will get leaked
‘https://nitter.net/FideliusSchmid/status/1580895348910075905#m
News: Sweden has called off a Joint Investigation Team with Germany and Denmark into the attacks on the Nordstream pipelines, referring to information too highly classified to share.
Ted • October 14, 2022 11:01 PM
In March the Netherlands deported 17 Russian intelligence officers who were under diplomatic cover. Six were encryption experts who enabled secure communications with Moscow. At least two were thought to be gathering info about microchips.
SpaceLifeForm • October 15, 2022 12:04 AM
Insecure by design. Won’t fix.
‘https://labs.withsecure.com/advisories/microsoft-office-365-message-encryption-insecure-mode-of-operation
Clive Robinson • October 15, 2022 4:38 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,
Re : Microsoft and “Insecure by design”.
Using “Electronic Code Book”(ECB) encryption mode is sometimes called making a “large alphabet substitution cipher” in that it’s not the size of the alphabet available that gives security. The security or compleate lack there off is down to the size of the alphabet used…
For instance back in the “Command line terminal” days, simple menu systems were used with maybe five options per screen. As each selection was a single key press the traffic on the wire under ECB was only five different “blocks” so working out which was which was easy.
The early versions of VNC with a fixed DES Key also had this issue.
Microsoft are an organisation that claims “great skill” in Cryptography and has employed various crypto experts at one time or another.
Yet the keep “making these mistakes” that always weaken security of information on the wire.
They also do the one thing “Bob Morise Senior” of the NSA warned most strongly about in his retirment speech.
Microsoft put very very large amounts of “Known Plaintext” at a “Known Position” in their file formats. Thus alowing much easier “Key Material”(KeyMat) recovery.
As far as security is concerned Microsoft and it’s products can be seen as a significant weakness thus of great harm to their customers.
As I keep pointing out, connecting computers used for confidential business and private corespondence to any kind of “Communications” is a very very bad idea. Thus for decades now, knowing that there is effectively an ECM-ECCM style “arms race” after users privacy, I have recommend that for the majority who can not hope to keep up with the required defences,
“Mitigation by segregation, with the use of entirely seperate ‘work’ and ‘communications’ computers with correct ‘gapping procedures’.”
This latest Microsoft quite deliberate weakening of users privacy by design just further confirms the mittigation strategy I suggest.
JG4 • October 15, 2022 8:38 AM
This will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Straight out of “The Pentagon Wars”
Thread by @vermontgmg on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1580949199151325184.html
He’s lucky that he didn’t catch a bullet in the head or have his plane crash in unfortunate circumstances. Under orders from The Dark Prince, whose heart should have rejected the recipient. Maybe his first one did.
I think that everyone paying attention knows that the Iraq war was one of the biggest scams in all of human history, at least in absolute terms. The social security scam ranks right up there.
Links 10/15/2022
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/10/links-10-15-2022.html
Posted on October 15, 2022 by Yves Smith
…
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Meta’s New Headset Will Track Your Eyes for Targeted Ads Gizmodo
Consumer privacy tension increases with voice and face biometrics cases across the US Biometric Update
Digital License Plates Bruce Schneier
…
SpaceLifeForm • October 15, 2022 5:19 PM
@ JG4, Clive, ALL
re: HintLeak
Thank you for the refresh. I saw this but did not follow it further. Obviously, some joggers had a clue.
It is Spy vs Spy stuff. There are bad actors in all levels of Government.
You can figure out which ‘programs’ were created by X, leaked by Y, and covered up by Z. But not immediately. Takes time.
This is why the TS/SCI Classification Marking system exists.
In this case, you can see that the Gang of 8 was not briefed via President prerogative.
The joggers that were read into the program (or just were paying attention and connected dots), knew that the Gang of 8 was not briefed. (at least, not the full gang). The joggers knew that something was wrong. But, if they actually told Leahy the proper program keywords, then they probably had been read into the program. Or the keywords were leaked to them. I would go with former, not latter.
It is just a matter of time before the moles are rooted out.
MarkH • October 17, 2022 9:21 PM
On 9 October I wrote on this thread,
“Whoever thinks Gazprom and the Kremlin are two different things, does not understand the Russian Federation.”
From Adnan Vatansever, a senior lecturer and Russia energy expert at King’s College London:
“Putin is very, very well versed in … the gas business. He’s almost the unofficial manager of Gazprom.”
SpaceLifeForm • October 18, 2022 12:07 AM
@ MarkH
re: unofficial manager of Gazprom
Well, there you go. The engineers can never explain to an idiot manager why you never want to shut down gas pipelines once they are operating.
Just because the manager is just too stupid to listen does not mean the engineers are incorrect.
Winter • October 18, 2022 12:19 AM
@SLF er al.
The joggers knew that something was wrong.
I am not well versed in spy stuff, but I immediately assumed these joggers were the equivalent of “I found the documents stuck under my car in the parking lot”. That is, a fabulation to protect the real sources.
But then, I live a protected life.
SpaceLifeForm • October 18, 2022 3:07 AM
@ Winter, JG4
re: Hintleak and the joggers
Not under the car, or even under the windshield wipers.
for convenience:
‘https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1580949199151325184.html
The joggers knew somehow that Leahy (as a member of Gang of 8) had not been properly briefed. Somehow, they knew that. When they mentioned ‘File Eight’ (not the real program name), and he was not aware, the joggers immediately had confirmation that he had not been briefed, and suggested he check it out.
So, he went to the SCIF.
Just like Devin Nunes did, he went to the SCIF. But you do not know what he read inside of the SCIF. Knowing someone went to a SCIF and knowing what they read, are completely two different things.
But, then, a few days later, the joggers mention that they heard he read ‘File Eight’ and should probably read ‘File Twelve’.
You have to ask yourself, how did the joggers know that Leahy read ‘File Eight’ at that point?
Maybe they were guessing. But maybe they knew he actually requested the file and actually sat in the SCIF and read it. Think about how that can happen.
They should not know what he read. He could have read anything. He could have just went into the SCIF and worked on a crossword puzzle.
Wait, bad analogy. He was working on a crossword puzzle.
Winter • October 18, 2022 5:05 AM
@SLF
You have to ask yourself, how did the joggers know that Leahy read ‘File Eight’ at that point?
To me, as an outsider, I think there were groups involved in this whole invasion mess, including the intelligence services of the armed forces, and Capitol Hill, and likely the GOP, who were seeing this thing as the disaster it proved to be. They try to save what they can.
These groups did have close knowledge about the intelligence, probably wrote the files themselves, and close contacts with the handling of these documents. They simply leaked to the people who might be able to do something.
Snowden was not alone, and he never ahs been alone.
I tend to see Capitol Hill as a cross between Byzantium’s [1] and Attila the Hun’s [2] courts. Maybe better even to think of De Waal’s “Chimpanzee Politics”.[3]
[1] ‘https://dailyscribbling.com/a-brief-guide-to-byzantium/byzantine-politics/
[2] ‘https://christogenea.org/references/priscus-describes-court-attila-king-huns-448
[3] ‘https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/389530.Chimpanzee_Politics
Clive Robinson • October 18, 2022 7:58 AM
@ Mark H, ALL,
Re : Russian Federation set up.
You said,
“Whoever thinks Gazprom and the Kremlin are two different things, does not understand the Russian Federation.”
They are two entirely different organisations. What they have in common is their “masters” call them “share holders” or “managers” you can trace a line of dependence and opretion by violence back to a small cleaque run by “The President of the Russian Federation”…
You might say “semantics” but it is actually an important difference. And one that those wgo run the GOP and much else in the US understand. That mabtra of “small government” is not just to redistribute assets to “favoured friends” it also gives those in charge hands free deniability via “arms length operation” it creates cheap plastic scapegoats. We saw this sort of behaviour in the UK under Prime Minister Tony Blair, and it continues on even today…
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Ismar • October 7, 2022 4:13 PM
Former Uber security chief convicted of concealing a felony
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63157883