Friday Squid Blogging: The Reproductive Habits of Giant Squid

Interesting:

A recent study on giant squid that have washed ashore along the Sea of Japan coast has raised the possibility that the animal has a different reproductive method than many other types of squid.

Almost all squid and octopus species are polygamous, with multiple males passing sperm to a single female. Giant squids were thought to have a similar form reproduction.

However, a group led by Professor Noritaka Hirohashi, 57, a professor of reproductive biology in the Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences at Shimane University suspects differently.

They examined 66 sperm “bags” attached to five different locations on the body of a female that washed ashore in Ine Town of Kyoto Prefecture in 2020, and found that all of them were from the same male.

It is rare for a female with sperm attached to be found, and further verification is needed, but the study’s results indicate that giant squid, unlike other squids, may be “monogamous.” That is, females may receive sperm from only one certain male. Hirohashi and his colleagues published their findings in an international scientific journal in July of 2021.

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.

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Posted on October 21, 2022 at 3:12 PM • 69 Comments

Comments

JPA • October 21, 2022 4:09 PM

This from Quanta magazine on privacy on the internet. Its somewhat beyond me but I thought some might be interested.

www . quantamagazine . org/the-computer-scientist-who-boosts-privacy-with-entropy-20221018/

lurker • October 21, 2022 5:12 PM

@JPA
A lot of it was history, until I got to “Payment comes in the form of cryptocurrency,” then a loud bell started ringing …

JPA • October 21, 2022 6:52 PM

@lurker

Yes. I just skimmed the rest of the article after I saw that.

I was just wondering about whether the privacy protocol would actually work. I know protocols can leak data in very subtle ways and I am nowhere near expert enough to tell if that is going to happen.

SpaceLifeForm • October 21, 2022 11:10 PM

@ JPA

Without digging very deep into Nym, I will just say that I do not think they have addressed the traffic analysis issue far enough. If you have to buy into the network, at some point, your fiat money transfer will be visible.

So, basically, you will stand out from the crowd, draw attention to yourself, and potentially become a subject of investigation without realizing it.

Same problem as using VPN or TOR.

Ismar • October 22, 2022 2:08 AM

Fines for massive data breaches to increase to at least $50 million after Optus and Medibank hacks

The financial penalty imposed on companies that suffer serious or repeated privacy breaches will be increased to at least $50 million. Read the full story

name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons • October 22, 2022 3:00 AM

The observational hypothesis that allow for giant squid to form more complex mating practices, i.e. monogamy, suggests to me that this species of squid may habit the same bars as do the genus octopi. It is understood recently that the octopus family consists of members provisioning high order control using distributed neuron-based components for sight, muscle, and endocrine modulation effecting textural surfaces. Instead of one centralized neural-net, six different physical structures are tied together and operator in a unitary fashion. Parallel processing in the animal kingdom, if you will. Consideration is also giving for a bifurcation in evolutionary biology near about the Paleozoic era, especially concerning cognitive optimizations.

&ers • October 22, 2022 7:31 PM

@Clive @SpacelifeForm @ALL

Some think the ransomware is the worst…

hxxps://web.archive.org/web/20160317045328/https://www.cio.com.au/article/65115/all_systems_down/

Clive Robinson • October 22, 2022 9:04 PM

@ JPA, lurker, SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : Abonynous Networking

“I was just wondering about whether the privacy protocol would actually work. I know protocols can leak data in very subtle ways and I am nowhere near expert enough to tell if that is going to happen.”

The article does not tell me much more than I’d found out a while ago and lost interest in (it had the hallmarks of a proof of work replacment scam).

However in the article it is noted that the best place to be anonymous is,

“In a crowd”

Which is correct but mixnets of which Nym is one provably do not give a crowd in the way they are currently implemented.

I’ve actually discussed these issues on this blog years ago and pointed out Tor was a bad design. I drew a lof of “fanboi ire” back then and like as not will do so again if I go through it again…

I guess I’ll have to read the Nym paper as earlier stuff I read was too vague, but in the past I was left with the feeling it was just another “proof of work” replacment (see Helium Mining for one existing example). So I’d long ago dropped Nym off my reading list.

SpaceLifeForm • October 23, 2022 12:01 AM

@ &ers, Clive, ALL

Good story even though it almost 2 decades old. I’m surprised you found it because the original is 404. Maybe you have institutional knowledge.

In every Merger or Acquisition, institutional knowledge will be lost.

If they call it a Merger, the layoffs may be delayed, but not very long.

If they call it an Acquisition, the entity being acquired will suffer badly.

When they call it a Merger, it is really an Acquisition, it is just to obscure which side will get decimated.

See Musk and Twitter and massive layoffs.

Clive Robinson • October 23, 2022 6:22 AM

@ &ers, SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : Ransomware is not the worst.

There is a story about a girl and her cat, where the cat does not stop growing. The author does a fine job on some of the details but leaves out anything to do with the back end of the cat…

It’s a hard lesson to learn but “re-cycling” driven by “entropy” is the natural state of any “bound system” and on Earth just about everything physical is “bound” thus “re-cycled” thus has a “tail end of the cat” issue.

In the US the utilitie entities that control infrastructure have a very costly “build cheap, demolish re-build even cheaper” mentality and tgus fragility rises and outages become not just normal but planed events (see California and PEG).

But the thing about “fragile” is “it rarely breaks randomly” and even when it does “it cascades” like that domino that gets vibrated and accidently falls into the next and becomes runaway…

Those who make those domino displays know about “cut outs and segregation” giving isolated islands of stability. But in real life you generally can not have the “redundancy” required to be able to support that (which is why non centralised usually “green” systems can save the day as happened with Texas).

Other nations had a different longer term view of “build well and make it last”. Yes it had high initial costs but in a fairly short time the process of inflation and less maintenance required made the costs actually less.

It turns out that “build cheap” is always self defeating. Take power cables, rather than dig a trench you put up poles. The problem is not only are poles fragile, you have to make the cables fragile to keep the weight down so the poles do not break. If you have to increase capacity then you have to put more poles in, not only is that very costly at some point they become a “fence” not just to the eye but as a very real physical barrier limiting other things that can be done or making them very much more costly.

The thing about putting cables in a trench is you don’t have to worry about the limits of gravity, therefor you can make the cables not just more robust but much higher capacity with less expensive materials (aluminium instead of copper for instance). But also you can build a trench with higher capacity for only minimally more cost than for low capacity thus adding “future proofing” is almost for free.

Thus we know how to solve slowly evolving infrastructure.

But what of rapidly evoloving infrastructure like communications?

Well… Throwing it all in the air appears to be the chosen solution for end users with “mobility” being a selling point. But few realise that you can not keep throwing it in the air, increasing bandwidth means smaller coverage area. We are already talking about “cell sites in every lamp post” and other “pico-cell” systems. Worse few are talking about the “back-haul” networks and what that entails.

Our “connected desires” driven by Marketing people with “perverted ideas” of data-raping via the cloud is very soon going to start hitting barriers that are defined by the laws of physics, nature, and our bound resources.

Whilst we can build much bigger clouds communicating with them will become an issue. It’s one of the reasons Google buys so much land and water rights, they know the only solution is not just “massively parallel” but importantly “massively distributed”.

Back when I was planning on my PhD research back last century it was this area of research I wanted to do. The problem was back then, I could not find a research supervisor who had heard of, let alone envission the problems and there was very very little “accademic publication” (a problem I have a habit of crashing into, as they are “slower than a snail on mogadon”, and more conservative than a “greek grandma” making progress glacial at best and impossible more often than not).

There is a saying that “Time and tide waits for no man” but as engineers are finding out, their problems are arriving faster than academia can or wants to research. The result is they have to go with “lash-up solutions” which are always more expensive than doing things on the cheap… The “spanning tree” algorithm is a “lash-up solution” in fact most Internet standards are “lash-up solutions” followed by later standards trying to ween people off of the lash-up they have so invested in…

I guess now you can see where I think the Internet is going and fragility is not the half of it.

One prediction is comms limitations will kill major/mega centralised systems. Thus the cloud will have to become so distributed that it will end up back on the desktop and in your pocket just so the comms will be sufficiently short range to meet the bandwidth requirments… A side result is we will by the laws of physics exist in smaller and smaller data islands which will mean the same as real geographic islands once had on society and thus politics, and that is not a good future to contemplate.

Debora Weber-Wulff • October 23, 2022 3:24 PM

Dr. Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim, a popular German science vlogger on the German public TV station ZDR, broadcast a 30 minute sequence of her show “Mai Think” about blockchain and Bitcoin on October 16, 2022:

https://www.zdf.de/show/mai-think-x-die-show/maithink-x-folge-16-100.html

I watched it, expecting the worst, but was pleasantly surprised by the excellent represention, understandable by the general public, that explained blockchains and crypto coins such as Bitcoin. She also clearly states that they are not for investing but only for speculation. Unfortunately, the show is available only in German (but with German subtitles selectable).

SpaceLifeForm • October 23, 2022 6:47 PM

@ ALL

MS Security Theatre – MoTW

‘https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/exploited-windows-zero-day-lets-javascript-files-bypass-security-warnings/

Update 10/22/22

After the publication of this article, Dormann told BleepingComputer that threat actors could modify any Authenticode-signed file, including executables (.EXE), to bypass the MoTW security warnings.

To do this, Dormann says that a signed executable can be modified using a hex editor to change some of the bytes in the signature portion of the file and thus corrupt the signature.

Once the signature is corrupted, Windows will not check the file using SmartScreen, as if a MoTW flag was not present, and allow it to run.

lurker • October 23, 2022 9:17 PM

@SLF
so a non-MoTW file is OK and doesn’t need any checks? So what’s the point of MoTW? Oh wait, it stands for Malware of The Week

ResearcherZero • October 24, 2022 1:17 AM

UN torture prevention body suspends visit to Australia citing lack of co-operation.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/un-torture-prevention-body-suspends-visit-australia-citing-lack-co-operation

The budget for Australia’s national human rights institution, the Australian Human Rights Commission, will fall significantly over the next four years.
https://www.ag.gov.au/system/files/2022-03/09-2022-23-Australian-Human-Rights-Commission.pdf

Even before the budget, the Australian Human Rights Commission expected it would need to reduce its staffing by 33% to operate within budget.

Australians have very little recourse to complaints for human rights violations beyond the Australian Human Rights Commission.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/17/australian-human-rights-commission-to-slash-staff-after-budget-cuts-and-surge-in-workload

Human Rights Council members are expected to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights,” and “fully cooperate with the Council.”
https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/09/22/australia-human-rights-council/ready-leadership-role

“This threat of reprisals with persons who would want to cooperate with me on the occasion of this official visit is unacceptable.”
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2015/09/migrants-human-rights-official-visit-australia-postponed-due-protection

ResearcherZero • October 24, 2022 2:02 AM

Investigators could require a journalist hand over a laptop or notebook with informant’s details.

“If it is evidential material of a criminal offence then a search warrant authorises an executing officer to seize that material.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-18/lawyers-criticise-nacc-public-hearing-test/101547324

“The requirements of exceptional circumstances will be a severely restricting factor on the NACC public hearings.”
https://publicintegrity.org.au/research_papers/the-national-anti-corruption-commission-bill-2022-will-australia-finally-get-a-fit-for-purpose-national-integrity-commission/

The power to hold public hearings when it is in the public interest to do so is indispensable to the work of an effective integrity commission.

“Alternative measures to safeguard reputations exist if they are determined to be necessary. The exceptional circumstances test which limits the ability of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (‘NACC’) to hold public hearings purports to respond to a problem for which no evidence exists.”
https://publicintegrity.org.au/research_papers/public-hearings-busting-the-myth-of-undue-reputational-damage/

“The requirement that public hearings may only be held where the Commissioner is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist, is not an accurate or useful threshold for this purpose.”
https://transparency.org.au/submission-national-anti-corruption-commission/

“It’s almost like creating a protection racket for their parliamentary mates. It’s very much an us and them [situation].”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/12/police-union-condemns-federal-corruption-commission-as-a-protection-racket-for-government-mps

Thousands of Australian Federal Police (AFP) members are demanding the next commonwealth government establish a strong anti-corruption commission that equally investigates politicians and law enforcement.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/06/australian-federal-police-demand-parties-commit-to-far-reaching-anti-corruption-body

SpaceLifeForm • October 24, 2022 2:47 PM

@ ResearcherZero, ALL

re: KernelCallbackTable process injection

I will not read the article.

I know it is Windows.

If you care at all about Security, do not use Windows. FULL STOP.

Clive Robinson • October 24, 2022 10:23 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, lurker, ResearcherZero, ALL,

Re : MS Security Theatre, MoTW

The fact that a file “has to be marked” as being from the Internet should be sufficient warning the whole further process is a “crock of 5h1t”…

This should not happen in the first place due to the use of incorrect logic by the “Specification developers”… Who stupidly want to make “everything magic” by turning what should be treated as “hostile data” by default into “always run code”…

A very bad idea that goes back decades.

In this case it happens to be “JavaScript” that causes the “magic of Ransomware”, but lets be honest it could be any data that can be / contain code.

What is not clear from the article is if “Turning JavaScript Off” stops the execution of the malware or not.

However MicroSoft include so many “interpreters” in there OS’s and Applications that they should not, turning them all off is close to impossible, not just for the average user but most Admins as well.

But one thing is certain I’ve been warning that files that “could be code” downloaded from untrusted places especially anything from the internet should not be alowed for so long now I think it’s got a white beard.

In particular I’ve told people,

“Disable JavaScript”

And was rewarded with replys we would regard as at best stupidity. More recently I’ve told people,

“Don’t use HTML5”

Why because both are a major security threat… But then I also warn against the “connect it all” idiocy…

As for the “signed-code makes it all OK” issue, why should I trust it? After all that blind trust model is the wrong way around and so should not be trusted at all EVER.

I could go on, but lets be honest turning untrusted data into code as a “convenience” so people could “watch dancing hamsters” was realy a bad idea way back then, and it’s gone down hill since, and the marketing people are determined to control the asylum.

ResearcherZero • October 25, 2022 12:14 AM

“It’s been said that mathematical reasoning can be like navigating a series of dark rooms, where you fumble around for the light switch until you finally find it, turn on the light and can proceed to the next room.”
https://research.checkpoint.com/2022/attacking-very-weak-rc4-like-ciphers-the-hard-way/

–

Humans, they are the main security problem.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11897478/ – that is the most complex police operation ever run here after years of public advocacy by the family, and it almost didn’t happen. There are many other cases, with more than enough evidence, but people do not care enough to make anything happen. Too lazy, too many dirty handshakes.

No agency in Australia keeping count.

“at least 315 First Nations women have either gone missing or been murdered or killed in suspicious circumstances since 2000”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-24/murdered-and-missing-indigenous-women-four-corners/101546186

the fatal assault was the seventh time Roberta’s partner had abused her in less than two weeks. It was five days after Roberta had been told by police to “stop calling us.”
https://justice.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/1113600/D01052019-Roberta-Curry.pdf

https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-03/sr39_homicide_in_australia_2019-20.pdf

One would assume the Human Rights Council seat means Australia will lead on issues of human rights domestically, but that is not the case.

“taken into police custody over a minor charge”

“He was then left lying, naked, in a pool of his own blood, for [more than] 12 hours, with his calls for medical and legal assistance from the on-duty officers being ignored.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-25/officers-accused-of-assaulting-aboriginal-man/101573696

“government failures to follow their own procedures and provide appropriate medical care to Indigenous people in custody are major causes of the rising rates of Indigenous people dying in jail.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/23/indigenous-deaths-in-custody-worsen-over-year-of-tracking-by-deaths-inside-project

ResearcherZero • October 25, 2022 12:51 AM

If our attitude to murder is a blasé, “Oh well.” In many organisations there was no internal complaints body or formal disciplinary system, and in many there is still not. Imagine what the attitude is to punching holes through the security of your software.

https://www.smh.com.au/technology/call-for-australia-to-declare-spyware-use-as-pegasus-outrage-grows-20210728-p58drm.html

The Golden Revolving Door

“They operate though a series of sub-contractors and affiliates and it’s not easy to know who is working for who.”

Partnerships, interlocking boards between private security, private surveillance and then also law enforcement and national security agencies.

“There are so many exemptions and exceptions for law enforcement under the Australian Privacy Principles around collection, storage, and disclosure of data that they are effectively meaningless, and then there is the absence of a bill of rights.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-28/wikileaks-reveals-australian-companies-selling-spyware/6652184

ResearcherZero • October 25, 2022 1:03 AM

And what starts Down Under won’t necessarily stay there.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/opinion/australia-encryption-surveillance-bill.html

It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that the bill may stealthily allow the spy agency to surveil the entire Internet with a single warrant.
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/new-laws-could-give-asio-a-warrant-for-the-entire-internet-jail-journalists-and-whistleblowers-20140923-10kzjz.html

The final contracts could be worth several hundred millions dollars depending on the scope.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-airshow-security-idUSKCN1QL0FT

“If you take a step back and you add all of these pieces together, from facial recognition technologies to mass surveillance of Australians without suspicion to the investment in drones – it creates a picture of a government that is drunk on surveillance.”
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3470394/australian-government-drunk-on-surveillance.html

And given Australia has a seat on the Human Rights Council, the Australian Government can influence what is deemed permissible.

ResearcherZero • October 25, 2022 1:10 AM

@JPA

Many spyware products work by siphoning off data for collection before being encrypted. Metadata provides information for targeting and analysis. Human interactions and behaviour provide metadata.

lurker • October 25, 2022 1:16 AM

Just cruisin’

‘https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/477311/covid-19-cases-on-one-of-first-cruise-ships-to-return-to-new-zealand

SpaceLifeForm • October 25, 2022 1:39 AM

@ lurker

re: Malware of The Week

Very good. How is that cruise ship ventilation working down under? Don’t they pull into a port at least once a week?

Leon Theremin • October 25, 2022 2:49 AM

San Diego ER seeing up to 37 marijuana cases a day — mostly psychosis

https://nypost.com/2022/10/22/san-diego-er-seeing-up-to-37-marijuana-cases-a-day/

“We’re now counting 37 cannabis-related diagnoses a day,” Dr. Roneet Lev, an addiction medicine doctor at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, said about her emergency department. “It’s been steadily increasing over the years. When I started in the 1990s, there was no such thing. Now I see 1 to 2 cases per shift. The most common symptom is psychosis.”

Article tells a story of a 19 years old that suicided after saying his room was bugged and his parents were trying to kill him.

“Specialist” still have no clue. Drugs don’t cause these. Criminals with microwave weapons wait for people to take drugs and then start messing with them so the victims’ testimony is made not credible by the drug association. Genetic relation is also inexistent, the criminals just target people who are related because they are already familiar with relatives.

&ers • October 25, 2022 5:20 AM

@Clive @SpacelifeForm @ALL

“The missile programmers are part of the Russian Armed Forces vast Main Computation Centre of the General Staff (GVC)”

hxxps://nitter.net/EliotHiggins/status/1584607815968395264

hxxps://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2022/10/24/the-remote-control-killers-behind-russias-cruise-missile-strikes-on-ukraine/

lurker • October 25, 2022 1:28 PM

@SLF
two or three times a week, the numbers were denied to MSM, but Michael Baker just said it was* about 120.

  • was when counted

JonKnowsNothing • October 25, 2022 3:03 PM

@ lurker, @SpaceLifeForm, All

re: was when counted … but in which bucket did they land?

In California we have multiple scenarios being promoted by MSM. Depending on which health bucket you are assigned varies which story you get.

  • COVID over.
  • COVID not over but Flu is more likely.
  • COVID is not too bad, although Millions have an undefined illness (aka Long COVID).
  • Flu is the Top Medical Finding, since COVID still requires a PCR test which are not done at home (there are no PCR home tests).
  • RSV virus and Influenza virus combined into a hybrid virus which can evade different immune responses. While one half of the hybrid tackles an antibody response, the other half goes on replicating.
  • Your Dx depends on how many C19 boosters and which C19 vaccine versions you got jabbed with.
  • 300+ flavors of COVID to chose from.

SpaceLifeForm • October 25, 2022 4:12 PM

@ &ers, Clive, ALL

While Clive has doubts about Bellingcat, they really do dig. They have extensive contacts inside Russia. I never dismiss their efforts.

Russia is running out of cruise missles. That is why they have brought in drones from Iran.

JonKnowsNothing • October 25, 2022 4:54 PM

@All

re: AI auto-recolor images

A recent MSM article described an AI tool that auto-colors images. It takes B&W photos and adds color to whatever the AI determines to be the subject. There is an example of the 1) original 2) black & white 3) post process image in the article.

Color is a very complex issue. Photo images and colors, as well as composition are known to be easily “shopped and altered”. An easy give-away is how the photo appears to you. Your emotional reaction. All tracked and tailored based on what you read and how long you pause before you scroll or click away.

In recent news, the UK has a new PM. The new PM’s physical appearance doesn’t look like recent holders of that office. The MSM has been having difficulty with their AI generated color alterations and there have been some whopper color variations. From a yellow tint shading through the darker ranges. The same image appearing in different tints and hues.

The AI can’t seem to settle on the correct shade.

The PR folks have been adjusting which compositions get released, an early one showed the new PM surrounded by admirers with all matching genders. That image got replaced quickly with an image where the gender ratio of the admirers is more palatable.

Still the color AI has a problem: When the AI parses the photo for color-tone, the selected PM color gets skewed.

Hopefully, it’s just bad code.

===

Search Terms

AI tool
colorizes
black-and-white photos
Ars

lurker • October 25, 2022 5:48 PM

@JonKnowsNothing

They’ve been “colorizing” old b/w movies and TV since 60(?) years ago, also with mixed results. Skin tone is the killer app, and this has been known since the pre-Technicolor red-green two layer process. More recently certain Chinese phone vendors claim to have cracked the African market, by solving the problems you note with the UK PM.

- • October 25, 2022 6:20 PM

@SpaceLifeForm:

#comment-411517

If you pull up the link it’s realy a lameass attempt to flog game development on the cheap.

Probably out of an Indian or Pakistani “sweat shop” style coding scam… So ‘caveat emptor’.

@Moderator has pulled their crud off two or three times so far just in the past weeks.

SpaceLifeForm • October 25, 2022 7:06 PM

@ -, Moderator, Clive

I thank you for paying attention and connecting dots. And it is good thing that Moderator does pay attention. Some times.

Well, at least you think so, according to your Observation.

But, there are bigger fish to fry these days. SEO is the least of society problems.

SpaceLifeForm • October 25, 2022 11:43 PM

@ lurker, JonKnowsNothing

“We have more than 10,000 people every day flying into New Zealand from all over the globe so we are fully connected with the whole diversity of Covid variants and sub variants and that’s a much faster way for them to arrive here rather than via cruise ship.”

Fully connected? Check.
Diversity? Check.
Much faster? Check.

That’s a nice Petri dish you have there.

SpaceLifeForm • October 26, 2022 12:00 AM

@ Clive

Since Musk started his crusade, you and I both noticed this.

I think it is just Twitter phasing out it’s bot farm before Friday and this is just a cover story for later. This is not a “heavy tweeter” in my book. The numbers make no sense.

‘https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-where-did-tweeters-go-twitter-is-losing-its-most-active-users-internal-2022-10-25/

These “heavy tweeters” account for less than 10% of monthly overall users but generate 90% of all tweets and half of global revenue.

A “heavy tweeter” is defined as someone who logs in to Twitter six or seven days a week and tweets about three to four times a week, the document said.

Clive Robinson • October 26, 2022 1:46 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, &ers, ALL,

Re : Trustworthiness of Bellingcat and other Media.

“While Clive has doubts about Bellingcat,”

There have been three occasions when I’ve looked into a Bellingcat story, and on each occasion it’s not come up smelling of roses or even as sweet as horse manure.

Maybe I’ve just got to look at three stories they were bad at, or from the other direction they are 100% wrong from what I’ve investigated. But from either end of that line they are “bad”[1].

So yes I don’t give them much credence, and to be honest I’m not prepared to put the effort in with checking them any more. I just don’t read their stories it’s easier.

Much the same as I don’t read the UK “Scum” red top Murdoch rag, or “Daily Fail” blue rinse throw a wobbler Rothermere bumwipe. Both of which have published inaccurate and prejudiced items on a near daily basis.

Oh and to be honest I treat what comes out of The Guardian with suspicion as well these days, ever since a certain female editor jumped into bed with the UK IC…

As for US MSM I check just about everything from them rather than risk taking it at face value, and I’d advise everyone to do the same.

[1] As I noted just a day ago the MSM has bad habits with regards security of sources. For instance the Intercept has burned atleast two whistleblowers to Federal Time, needlessly and probably ruined more. I appreciate they have to “check the stories” and the “legal Dept want’s hard proof” but they did not have to go so far especially as it’s bad for business… Bellingcat appears to check less, which for a whistleblower maybe a safer option, but it also leaves Bellingcat more open to “Fake News” or “False Flag” operations out of the likes of Russia.

ResearcherZero • October 26, 2022 2:08 AM

All of Medibank customer records accessed.

The claims data includes some of peoples’ most private medical information including information about diagnosis, procedures and location of medical services.
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/medibank-hackers-threaten-to-release-stolen-health-data-in-ransom-demand-20221019-p5br2s.html

Medibank has also said former customers have been included in the records received so far, as the company is required to keep customer information for seven years under state and territory laws. The hacker obtained stolen Medibank credentials from another hacker on a Russian cybercriminal forum.

“significant amounts of health claims data” of all ahm, international student, and Medibank customers.
https://www.medibank.com.au/livebetter/newsroom/post/medibank-cybercrime-business-and-fy23-outlook-update

In its full year 2022-2023 outlook update to the Australian Securities Exchange, Medibank said it did not have cyber insurance.
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/gov-invokes-emergency-coordination-as-medibank-breach-worsens-586965

Clive Robinson • October 26, 2022 2:34 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : User Decline.

“I think it is just Twitter phasing out it’s bot farm before Friday and this is just a cover story for later.”

It’s not just Twitter, it’s blogs, vlogs, and much other of the older “online” systems.

In part it’s because some users are growing older, and also in part C19/Lockdown has forced many to reasses their relationship to the screen and keyboard (think upturn in automated managment spyware).

Also Twitter appealed to “celebs on the move” who got chauffeured and the like, and those travelling on public transport and the like, where they were in effect captive and

“The Devil made work for idle hands and eyes”

Thus as people are not moving around as much you get a double hit. Less vacuous of the cuff Tweets about location, diner, who they’ve seen and a lot less interest in the vacuous behaviours as other subjects become of more interest than even a half dozen tweets can hold/cover.

Thus the young who have yet to work their way through the grist mills of life have headed to the new more sparkly platforms and the old observation about 3G of for “Girls Gambling snd Games” has hit home for older platforms hence the increase in Not Suitable For Work content.

People tend to forget the Internet is a “fashion show” and Twitter is “Oh so last season” at best.

Then as you and I have both noticed the “board changed it’s makeup” to what I’ve suggested might just be a gang of crooks doing anything and everything they can to cash-in… As I said there were all the signs of “Pump-n-dump” not realy having worked prior to Musks interest, so the board I guess have seen him as their last chance to take the money and run. Which is what the activities since Musk got involved suggest…

My guess is Musk read the pump-n-dump as the market reflecting the managment change, rather than the issue of users doing other things. Thus saw the shine as a “silver dollar” to feed on rather than it being a metal spoon lure thus got on the hook to be played[1].

[1] These are “angling” terms, and yes believe it or not sitting on a damp river bank with your pole/rod in hand twitching it for hours is considered not just a sport… But the number one participating sport in the UK… Personally I lump it in with other useless blood sports that don’t achieve anything other than pain and anguish for the prey.

ResearcherZero • October 26, 2022 2:41 AM

Medical information was amongst one of the tactics used to extort information or put pressure on sources. It is the kind of information that can potentially destroy careers, which is another good incentive to better care for personnel, and to limit potential damage to organisations overall. It can also be used to identify targets and their families.

Therefor it should be deleted. The security of medical information should be paramount.

Confusion is Half The Battle

Assassinations work because “at the very least it’s disruptive and demoralising … at best it’s years of knowledge and contacts – that’s all gone.”
The media underestimated considerably just how much of a continuous element this represents from a Russian point of view.
https://www.insider.com/illegals-of-directorate-s-russia-undercover-covert-sleeper-agents-2017-12

They were trained rigorously from their teenage years… to remove the Russian touch from their English accent.
https://www.rishidv.com/post/kgb-s-most-ambitious-plan-the-illegals-program-and-the-directorate-s

a very complex, expensive, and at times drawn-out process
https://espionagehistoryarchive.com/2016/06/03/kgb-directorate-s-training-an-illegal/

Directorate S: Illegals
https://web.archive.org/web/20141122190438/http://miamioh.edu/cas/_files/documents/havighurst/stasi-documents.pdf

According to German intelligence specialists who described Putin’s task, the goal was stealing Western technology or NATO secrets. A newly revealed document shows Putin was trying to recruit agents to be trained in “wireless communications.” Putin may also have been interested in military electronics and intelligence about NATO from informers in the West. A puzzling and unexplained aspect of the Bohm letter is a reference to Soviet “military intelligence,” which was a different agency from the KGB, to which Putin belonged. It is possible Putin was targeting Western military operations.

Putin spent 17 years as a mid-level agent in the Soviet KGB’s foreign intelligence wing – Directorate S.

It is important to note, although Putin wanted to work as an agent overseas, instead he was appointed to an office posting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/russiagov/putin.htm

“A puzzling and unexplained aspect of the Bohm letter is a reference to Soviet “military intelligence,” which was a different agency from the KGB”

The GRU (military intelligence) also managed Directorate S, as well as the SVR (foreign intelligence).

JonKnowsNothing • October 26, 2022 9:52 AM

@All

re: SCOTUS complaints

A MSM report of a speech made by SCOTUS Judge Alito who complained that the leak of the ROE decision put the justices in “danger”.

It’s rather curious that the Judge had not considered all the other controversial findings of the court and the risk those opinions caused, not only to the court itself but to the Judges involved.

He seemed to be concerned about targeted physical attacks, as if no one else ever had to worry about targeted physical attacks or targeted technical attacks or targeted reputation attacks.

Actually with all the options on the internet for attacks on multiple levels only a few have any prospect for a successful complaint.

It comes down to what seems to be the Judge’s shattered belief that they are (or were) immune to the vicissitudes of society.

This mirror’s many of the descriptions from victims of all sorts of personal-area-space infringements both physical and mental, that our view of safety isn’t as safe as we think.

Clive Robinson • October 26, 2022 11:04 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing, ALL,

Re : Safty is an illusion.

“This mirror’s many of the descriptions from victims of all sorts of personal-area-space infringements both physical and mental, that our view of safety isn’t as safe as we think.”

The judge is living in a fantasy world if they in any way think they are safe. Oh and that they have neither studdied history, or what you might call “current affairs” in other countries where judges are routienly jailed by politicians, or assacinated by crooks or others.

The problem is nearly everyone who is “middle class” and “employed” in the West First world have a “quaint notion” that the Police are there to protect them etc etc etc.

It comes as a surprise when they find they, their family, loved ones, friends, colleagues etc get harmed and killed.

The main reasons they don’t see more “harm” is two fold,

1, The middle class are a target rich environment.
2, Crooks doing more than financial harm are bad news for other crooks who will often take care of the problem.

Something that should realy pull middle class people out of their day dream fantasies, and make them start thinking more sensibly, before their number comes up in lifes lottery and an unwanted visitor with “might is right” beliefs enters their lives to their detriment.

There are only two ways the average person can limit the potebtial harm visiting,

1, Look like they have nothing.
2, Push themselves in a visable way further up the tree so they nolonger look like “low hanging fruit”.

The problem with the second option is that there are certain basic types of crook,

1, Idiots / drunks / drugies
2, Oft male “opportunity snatchers”.
3, Low resourced planners.
4, High resourced planners.

The first two tend to be “street crime” or “commercial outlet” criminals, so for the average middle classed person, not putting a foot on the street is the way to avoid them.

Of the second two well planed security systems beyond those of your neighbors pushes you up the tree somewhat.

However, too well planned makes you of much more interrst to the last group, and there is little you can do to stop them if they want in…

So the trick is to be sufficiently defended against “low resourced planners” but not attractive to “well resourced planners”.

The trick there is to use a mixture of both methods. Firstly don’t be “showy” have “nice but old” don’t “flash up” or even “keep up”, don’t have “home deliveries” and “never put wrapping or boxes in the trash”. Don’t have brass or other shiny door furniture and if you do for god sake don’t polish it, let the front and backyards look a little unkempt thus you look a little “down at heal”. But do install what looks like cheap security systems that can be seen as a “front” and where you can fences that have to be climbed not jumped that are alarmed invisably, obvious IR triggered “flood lights” and cheap CCTV. Then have secondary well concealed security systems of a better quality that importabtly are independent of “The Internet”. Importantlt have interior zoned security including hidden CCTV etc and have atleast a “two path” internal layout.

The problem in the US suburbs is most houses are actually way to cheaply built and built as fire traps. An expensive door lock and bars on the window can be easily avoided by a home invader just by going through the exterior stud wall with worthless security wise cladding…

If you want actuall real security you need to have a home with solid walls that are not “timber framed” and an interior “citadel” where the walls are solid reinforced concrete etc. Such things can be expensive, however there are still homes with “cold war” nuclear bunkers that come up on the market. I’ve a friend who has one with his “home office” / “den/games/cinema” in it where the seating is actually “pull-out beds” with a small shower/toilet attached. As a “panic space” it’s good for a while. In London and several other UK cities, a lot of people have “extended down” and have built out coal cellers and similar into extra living space making such places secure is only marginally more expensive.

JonKnowsNothing • October 26, 2022 1:06 PM

@Clive @All

re: Moving Levels of Security through Social Climbing

Anna Russell had a great sense of humor and was known for her comedic routines on Opera and Classical Music. She did a routine called “How to write your own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera” where she describes and sings all the parts needed.

One of the characters is Claude Belly Bunion The Great Tycoon. The song details how he became the Great Tycoon.

The Patter Song:

I only had a very rudimentary education, my professors knew entirely to my great determination. Once I nearly went to prison for a shady operation, but I undermined the jury and they changed their tune.

I started as a gangster with a power so despotic the police became dogmatic and the going too chaotic that I made a lot of money on a very nice narcotic. I’m a fabulous phenomenon, the great tycoon.

Even with the passage of time, her wit and perception are as funny as ever.

===

Search Terms

Anna Russell

Anna Russell Sings! Again?
1953, Columbia Masterworks, ML4733

How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera

EvilKiru • October 26, 2022 5:20 PM

@ various correspondents regarding Bellingcat:

Multiple online rating sites list Bellingcat as leaning Left-Center and Media Bias Fact Check lists them as Mostly Factual. However, both Monthly Review Online warns that Bellingcat “launders National State Security talking points into the press” and Columbia Journalism Review warns to “Watch out for Bellingcat”, although after skimming the article it seems the author is using “watch out” in a positive sense, rather than the negative one that I assumed upon finding the article.

Meanwhile, Media Bias Fact Check lists both CJR and MR Online as High Factual Reporting with Left Bias.

Make of this what you will, as I have no horse in this race.

SpaceLifeForm • October 26, 2022 6:13 PM

@ ALL

@RachelTobac

I am sorry to say, as much as you understand the problems, and as much as I do appreciate your work, you have lost the plot.

You do want to ever Google your PII. Never do that. Never.

‘https://nitter.net/RachelTobac/status/1585040372841205760#m

Clive Robinson • October 26, 2022 7:38 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : Right to be forgotten.

As far as I’m aware the only place with a real legal “Right to be forgotton” is those resident in the European Union.

However a little legal twist…

If you inform an organisation in writting by “signed for”/”proof of delivery” post they have details wrong… If they then sell on or even transfere to a third party for free those details they are “knowingly” committing a fraud or deception both of which are criminal acts.

I’ve found that having copies of the letters couriered to the directors of the companies home addresses generally wakes them up. If not a “personal call” on them early one Sunday morning to serve them a cease and desist letter personally can be a bit of a shock to their complacency…

So far I’ve not had to send someone to, or personaly visit a director twice…

Weather • October 26, 2022 7:58 PM

@slf
Microsoft still have problems from way back, but they have fixed from way back, task manager, driver query,netsh,netstT -ano,re-edit, and others still work, just recently cleaned or Simi, only 1 hour, but you can still rep the guts out of windows, noticed that the reteAL shop applied a Chinese language setting, priv exe on unknown user,group,19,1,22 access, the default home router that comes with signing up, point less, yeah a System account, cache renounce setting, but hay, roll eyes

SpaceLifeForm • October 27, 2022 12:11 AM

Spam today to a nearly year old article.

I can not fathom why a spammer would reference someone who has been dead for over 4 years now. I guess the spammers are desperate these days.

‘https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/friday-squid-blogging-squid-game-cryptocurrency-was-a-scam.html/#comment-411565

Weather • October 27, 2022 12:37 AM

Slf
The Russian bet you on quator, Nero gas leak , and opic, yes it’s a tell, but you know or after look at, it’s not that steep inclined, think about it Russia said at 12:00am Thursday 26th we will be conducting drills, I asked you lot go to the second level, and no some viruses on my perants computer is not going to effect. What side it’s bi directional

Weather • October 27, 2022 12:49 AM

@slf
Yeah deed, just the meds change, but the fix of computer was worrying, can fix it by myself, just seeing if it you that are doing it?

SpaceLifeForm • October 27, 2022 2:51 PM

AWS Again? Call it an Event.

I do not need to read the article, I know it is AWS. Call it an extremely strong hunch based upon history.

But, I will read and verify.

‘https://www.slashdot.org/story/406431

‘https://cybernews.com/security/thomson-reuters-leaked-terabytes-sensitive-data/

Yep.

‘https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/thomson-reuters/

Because of the robust failover architecture and the technical capabilities of AWS, we have not lost a single event since we started collecting data.”

Anders Fritz
Senior Manager of Product Innovation, Thomson Reuters

vas pup • October 27, 2022 5:00 PM

Former NSO CEO and ex-chancellor of Austria establish new cybersecurity startup

https://www.timesofisrael.com/former-nso-ceo-ex-chancellor-of-austria-establish-new-cybersecurity-startup/

“Dream Security to defend critical infrastructure sites from cyber attacks, including oil, water, energy facilities, raises $20 million in early round.

Months after stepping down as CEO of NSO Group, the embattled cyber espionage firm he co-founded, Shalev Hulio has linked up with the former chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, to establish a cybersecurity startup that will defend critical infrastructure sites like oil, water, and energy facilities from cyber attacks.

The startup, called Dream Security, will also work with government agencies and entities with a first focus on Europe, Israeli business daily Globes first reported on Wednesday. The new company raised an exceptional pre-seed round of $20 million with a group of investors led by Dovi Frances, an Israeli-American venture capitalist and the founder of the investment firm Group 11.”

vas pup • October 27, 2022 5:01 PM

Flush with data: Kando transforms public health with wastewater intelligence
https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/flush-with-data-kando-transforms-public-health-with-wastewater-intelligence/

“Israeli startup uses data from sewage networks to identify potential health hazards.

Although the technology to detect polio in wastewater has existed for a while, Kando, an Israeli startup, now helps health officials to understand exactly where outbreaks occur. Kando places sensors across a sewer network which then can detect polio, coronavirus and other diseases. The data helps public health experts pinpoint the location in real time.”

Clive Robinson • October 27, 2022 5:08 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, lurker, ALL,

Re : Major Cloud Fail.

For some reason it’s either Amazon’s AWS –mostly– or Microsoft’s cloud-/-services providing the shifting sands foundations to these things serious embarrassments…

“AWS Again? Call it an Event.”

Or a point on the dowbward spiral of doom that using Cloud and the services on it is becoming. Which brings us to,

“Would you buy a used car from this man?”

I’m trying to guess which packet or carton the MBA was clipped from…

You get the feeling that no “security smarts” are on the resume…

But the question that remains unanswered is that pertaining to SSL…

vas pup • October 27, 2022 6:02 PM

One of the crowd or one of a kind? New artificial intelligence research indicates we’re a bit of both

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221024102913.htm

“An Aston University computer scientist has used artificial intelligence (AI) to show that we are not as individual as we may like to think.

In the late 1960s, famous psychologist Stanley Milgram demonstrated that if a person sees a crowd looking in one direction, they’re likely to follow their gaze.

Now, Dr Ulysses Bernardet in the Computer Science Research Group at Aston University, collaborating with experts from Belgium and Germany, has found evidence that our actions follow a two-step process when we’re in a crowd.

!!!!!!!Their results, “Evidence for a two-step model of social group influence” published in iScience show that we go through a two-stage process, where we’re more likely to imitate a crowd =>first and think independently second.

Dr Bernardet, said: “Humans demonstrate an initial tendence to follow others — a reflexive, imitative process. But this is followed by a more deliberate, strategic processes when a
person will decide whether to copy others around them, or not.

“This influence is not only felt in the form of social norms but also impacts immediate actions and lies at the heart of group =>behaviors such as rioting and mass panic.

“Our model is not only consistent with evidence gained using brain imaging, but also with recent evidence that gaze following is the manifestation of a complex interplay between basic
attentional and advanced social processes.”

SpaceLifeForm • October 27, 2022 9:14 PM

@ ALL

If one pays attention to the money laundering, stuff may pop up.

There may be a Catch 22.

‘https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/dallas-attorney-charged-1-billion-tax-shelter-scheme

SpaceLifeForm • October 27, 2022 10:49 PM

@ FBI, ALL

I suspect that the Check Washing problem has USPS insiders involved.

Monday night into Tuesday morning, someone I know had his car broken into.

Both the drivers side window and passenger side window were broken during steady rain. There was cash money inside the console. The console was left open. The money was NOT taken. Read that again. THE MONEY WAS NOT TAKEN. Nothing was taken at all. Other cars in the area also were broken into the same way. The police think the perps were looking for guns. I am not buying this story.

I find it difficult to believe that someone would leave their gun inside their car overnight. I suspect they were looking for checkbooks.

But, hey, what do I know?

‘https://www.stltoday.com/thefts-from-mailboxes-skyrocket-across-us/article_5f006083-b722-5207-9267-91e2dcae91b5.html

JonKnowsNothing • October 27, 2022 10:55 PM

@All

re: Twits with Sinks

For posterity:

The Head Twit has now completed the acquisition he wanted, although he needed a court proceeding to convince him that he wanted to complete the transaction. He brought a sink with him just to prove.. something…

The California At Will Employment Laws are in effect with the demanded exodus of the top tier former honchos being escorted from the building.

At Will means you can come or you can go and you don’t need to give notice or say why. Unless you are doing the Big Goodbye for the remaining people still getting a pay check. Based on exit size, age, etc etc a bit more notice is required but not much. (1)

There are several more popcorn machines at work

1) What does the Head Twit plan next… all sort of options there

2) What the SEC & DOJ does in investigating TESLA about the AutoPilot Driver Assistance Program

3) Whether the SEC or Other LEA decides to look into Twitter Bots (now Elon Musk’s problem)

4) Whether Twitter will prosper under New Management

Lots of caramel corn for everyone.

===

1) During past layoffs in Silicon Valley, the notice period was covered by a golden handcuff extra pay check with an NDA on your way out the door. Refuse and you get nothing today. Accept and you get nothing next week.

JonKnowsNothing • October 27, 2022 11:13 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, @ FBI, ALL

re: looking for checkbooks

I doubt too many people remember how to write out a check. Anyone still having to write out a check often needs prompting on what to write where and worse, how to spell out numbers.

It can be surprising what people are hunting for…

RL tl;dr

Some years back, there was a shortage of spring hay fever over the counter medications in the area. There were none to be had in any pharmacy for 30-50 miles around. A few stores had taken whatever was left on the self and put them behind the counter and gave out limited amounts.

It was an odd thing to have a run on, until someone explained what was going on.

In the war on drugs some ingredient used in the manufacturing of said items was in short supply for a number of reasons. It was a supply shock in their delivery system. Some of their chemists figured out they could use the ingredient in the OTC hay fever capsules.

The only problem (or one of them) was they needed a lot of them and the capsules are in “blister packs” and you have to pop them open to get the capsule out. So car loads of people would patrol all the stores, shops, pharmacies that had these OTC items. A car load of people would buy their allotments so they managed to get a good haul per stop. While driving to the next stop everyone in the car (except the driver) was popping open the blister packs.

Which led to an awful lot of blister packs in the garbage and tossed out as litter.

Winter • October 28, 2022 5:54 AM

@vas pup

In the late 1960s, famous psychologist Stanley Milgram demonstrated that if a person sees a crowd looking in one direction, they’re likely to follow their gaze.

That is why humans have “white eyes”, to slshow where we are looking. Apes do not have that. They want to hide where they are looking.

“Evidence for a two-step model of social group influence” published in iScience show that we go through a two-stage process, where we’re more likely to imitate a crowd =>first and think independently second.

I can think of many circumstances and situations where this strategy will save your life.

JonKnowsNothing • October 28, 2022 10:58 AM

@ Winter, @vas pup

re: why humans have “white eyes”, to show where we are looking

I’ve never considered the effect of white surrounding the eye for that effect. It’s an astounding proposition.

Horses can have white around the eye and some horses have blue eyes. Humans can have multi-colored parts of the iris or 2 different colored eyes. Sheep dogs like Border Collies often have blue eyes too. Some cattle have white surrounding their eyes, although current breeding programs have focused on dark area around the eye, as pink skin is subject to skin cancers. Similar pink skin on paint-pinto horses or white-cremello horses are subject to skin cancers from sun exposure too.

When a group of horses hears a loud unexpected noise, there is a startle response. Up come the heads, nostrils flare sniffing and snorting. All eyes looking in the direction of the noise. All it takes is 1 of them to bolt and they all bolt away. The “better run than get eaten by a mountain lion” response. What gets missed by non observers is that they stop after 30 feet and look back. If they decide there’s nothing to be frightened of they go back to grazing, otherwise they have a good run. Riders can exploit the automatic stop to calm the horse and interrupt the impulse to continue to run away. (1)

I don’t think many horses look at each other’s eyes to find the direction, they use their ears and the head position of their neighbors to orient themselves.

Geese are interesting too. A number of group animals have a rotating “Guard” who keeps their head UP while the others graze. The Guard changes frequently. When the Guard gives a warning or alert movement, all the heads come up and look in the direction the guard is looking at. They display a similar startle-move-stop-run-wait response.

Humans though don’t always look in the right direction. Everyone else can be looking in one direction but some are looking behind or turning around or trying to figure out what everyone else is looking at.

Humans can process Doppler Sound effects, so we know when we hear the fighter plane it is not in the direction of the sound but we can tell from the pitch what direction the plane is moving. We also know that fighter plane First Strike cannot be heard, hence the use of air raid warnings.

It’s quite interesting that the white color of human eyes gives directional indicators.

===

1) When riding a horse with a determined bolt response, the most common outcome is a bad wreck. Horses will run through fencing and barbed wire with out any hesitation. The instinct to get away is paramount. Often times the rider makes it worse by reinforcing the run response with poorly timed interventions and poorly executed riding skills.

Lucky riders get a fast trip back to the barn. Unlucky riders get a trip to hospital.

SpaceLifeForm • October 28, 2022 4:50 PM

@ JonKnowsNothing, ALL

re: Twits with Sinks

The kitchen sink would not fit into his Tesla.

How long until Musk brings @dotMudge in to do a good audit of their LAN?

JonKnowsNothing • October 28, 2022 5:51 PM

@SpaceLifeForm, @All

re: A dotMudge Audit that isn’t CorneliusFudged

I would image a good number of people have been through various types of audits. The one most feared is an IRS audit because it has serious financial and possibly a restricted life style implication.

It prolly wouldn’t matter who does the audit because the people who work there already know what’s wrong. There’s a difference of opinion about what to do about it. In most internal audits nothing happens because it costs $$$ and loss of prestige to admit to anything at all. Lots of electrons sacrificed on e-reports and email chains.

What would be exciting is to see something worthwhile happen in the forms of security but it begs the question of exactly what that means. Is it wrong to have 1 alt persona or 1Mill alt personas? Many MMORPG games exist only because players can have multiple personas, so in those cases it is not wrong at all.

So audit by all means. What to do is another. Internet companies are only as good as their occupancy rates.

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