Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • February 19, 2023 1:26 PM

@ Cyber Hodza, ALL,

“why not give us a lay of the land of the British agencies and their misbehaviour and not just focus on other country agencies?”

I actually do where I can, and have done frequebtly in the past.

But there are a couple of obvious reasons you need to remember,

1, I use OSint with refrences (as demanded by others here over the years).
2, The UK has DORA and two OSA’s that constrain journalists and others inside the jurisdiction.

Back in “Mad Maggie” Thatchers day as prime minister she abused the legislation profusely, and she tried to do so with me (I got lucky others did not). Thankfully her behavioirs mostly got laughed out of court. However her theological “sons and daughters” are back at the helm and you can look up the changes Boris Johnson put in under the cover of C19[1] even joe Stalin would be impressed.

Which brings us to,

“Surely, you would know more about them being closer to home?”

You are not applying basic logic there. Consider “being closer” also means “being in arms reach” especially when in the same jurisdiction…

Need I point out what is happening to Julian Assange, and what happened to one of the few who stood up to defend him and get the factual story about what was actually happening to him out? At a time when the editor of The Guardian was busy slurping the UK Intel Service “cool aid” as “juiced up” by the US IC…

Have a little think about it, in the mean time if you are not well within UK authorities prospective grasp, please feel free to say what you can about UK agencies within three limits,

1, The rules of our host.
2, What can be shown to be OSint.
3, What can be shown to be reasonable analysis others can follow.

Oh I find “The laws of physics” and the notion of “criminal economics” –or “follow the money”– generally work quite well for “reasonable analysis”.

[1] You might have noted that I was revealing much about the UK Government C19 coverup in the UK at the time it was happening, because back then those doing it were less adept at running MSM and similar coverups than other shall we say much more experienced UK Government depts and agencies. Now you will find they have got both MSM and social media better under their control. Both Twitter and YouTube have been extreamly obliging in this respect[2] due to what are effectively lobbying campaigns run by certain big phama organisations who are in the cover up way beyond their eyebrows.

[2] Read their “connunity rules” that give control to anonymous “right of reply” aka big phama lobyists and insistance that it has to be what the Government says aka set by those who have revolving door enployment with big phama or are “grant dependent” or in other ways under the thumb.

Clive Robinson • February 19, 2023 4:06 PM

@ Winter, JonKnowsNothing, ALL,

“The folks in RU have a very long history of making the most disastrous choices. Therefore, I have pretty low hopes.”

The reason for this has been given many names including “Peasants Dreams” but it boils down to a quirk of Russian language thus culture.

It’s a form of “sentimentality” that despite all the contrary evidence believes in a “Noble Past” that never ever existed.

Russian history is one of failure bought out by invasion and theft by Empire. Where a few get very very rich but most remain worse than dirt poor, uneducated, and kept issolated, and badly abused. Rule was by quite unplesant tyranny of the original meaning of terrorism and corrupt religion that lived off the teat/largess of the very very rich. The way up the greasy pole from poverty was as with the military vy sadism and psychopathic behaviour, where you beat and killed your way up by climbing the pile of the fallen you had created as a high ground for wider reach.

It is in short pre-medieval, barbaric and no way for an industrial society to form to take advantage of mineral wealth. Without which Russia largely remains peasant in outlook.

You can see that those who rose by ability, mostly did it by less than legal means, and they are now knowingly “deserting the sinking ship”. Ostensibly before they are disapeard or fly out of hospital windows or get chopped to pieces by hatchet wielding sadists / psychopaths or get sent to be cannon fodder or die of preventable illness in the “military” that is so badly failing and burning the bodies to keep the true losses quiet.

As for Russian prowess in SigInt someone mentioned, it’s realy not apparent that it’s even remotely close to the battlefield. Because if it was, they would be screaming at the commanders not to be so stupid in their use of communications. Jumping up and down shouting and waving in bright pink boilersuits whilst under fire, would be safer than most ways the Russian troops have communicated.

As you note eventually Putin will have a “Victory” to claim even if it creates 50million widows, orphans, and grieving parents and siblings. Putin will issue cheep medals and stop them talking so Russians do not find out the true “butchers bill”.

Not that it realy maters with “peasant stock” the view is they will just breed like their farm animals, to be fit and strong for the next slaughter (sorry glorious campaign).

Expect Russia to be going back into Afghanistan again in the near future, as they won’t have learnt that half millennium old lesson.

Clive Robinson • February 20, 2023 5:40 AM

@ Winter, ALL,

My personal view is that the way to lasting peace in Europe and further is by equity and choice via education and trade.

That is education in the general sense, as non exploitative trade needs both sides to be not just effectively equals but also have choice with whom to trade to ensure equity.

Unfortunately there is always the explotative element looking for personal power and wealth by any means. When such ambitions become political, history tells us that usually war of one form or another is close at it’s heels…

Whilst Putin and his cleaque are clearly exploitative in the worst senses any criminal enterprise requires complicit players.

Like it or not NordStream 2 was by EU legislation illegal as the US and others including Ukrain pointed out. The way certain Germans got around this was by pretending they only had control over the equivalent of “The last mile” where the pipeline landed. One of those “legal nonsenses” that hide so much.

Yes Gerhard Schröder can have a finger pointed at him but who else?

The entire energy market along the Eastern boarders of Europe makes little sense unless you look at it politically. Then you discover a whole can of blood-worms wriggling away from the light.

But under it much of the German population was hooked on the “Going Green Dream” but without the compensatory energy supply for industry. Germany wanted to switch from dirty coal as an energy source to what was seen as comparatively clean gas, as a halfway step. Gas has all sorts of other advantages as well, but unlike the UK and Norway, Germany does not have it’s own supply even close to being able to support it’s industries still expanding need for energy. To keep the other “Driving Europes Economy Dream” going they needed cheap plentiful energy at low or zero cost…

When presented this way it’s clear to see just what sort of trap German Politicians were sleepwalking into. But the reality is they were driven by the German citizens desire to have an on the surface guilt free life style, that was effectively luxury, without asking who was paying for the subsidised ride and how…

For the past decade or so we know Putin has used having his hand on the winter gas tap as a way of excercising political control over other countries. So people should ask what made the Germans think they were special and the same would not happen to them?

It should have been clear that the “piper” was going to have them dance his tune at some point as he saw the West as effectively “Rats” or other vermin.

I know there are many who will say “But it would have been different this time” but that expression is heard from countless abuse victims every day… Who have a dream that somebody else will exploit for their own power, ammusment and control. Such relationships almost never end well as there is no incentive for the abuser to change.

Clive Robinson • February 21, 2023 7:42 AM

@ Winter,

“Experience has shown that Russia is more like to destroy or plant evidence than help to find the truth.”

So what?

The legal niceties even in international affairs give the owners of property the right to investigate and ask for restitution.

I think we can agree the evidence so far is,

1, Not a natural event.
2, Not an unintentional action.

Which then leaves,

3, Deliberate “criminal action”.
4, Deliberate “initiatory act of war”.

On the list to be answered.

Criminal codes in many Western Democracies allow either the harmed party or accused party to carry out their own independent investigations. There are rules in place to ensure that their enquires do not compromise evidence.

So to rebut your point, such measures can and should be in place and Russian access given under reasonable independent supervision, otherwise it just plays to Russian arguments…

But to get back on track, I was responding to your question of,

“I would like to point out that a dominant actor in this conflict, Russia, has been very active in publishing accusations, but never presents any evidence at all. My question is then, if the US is behind this attack, why would the owner of the pipelines not publis the evidence they have?”

Which I answered succinctly, I did not repeat what Russia has or has not done because you’ve already made your views clear on that ever since MH10, and they are not actually that relevant to the “reason” for why any evidence –if any is held– has not been presented.

That is withholding information leaves the other player in a state of uncertainty which makes their play harder as their potential losses rise significantly but their potential gains do not. Thus maybe you should be asking out of fairness,

“If the US are not directly or indirectly responsible why are they acting like a guilty man in a law enforcment interrogation?”

Also ask imilar of certain other EU nations, all of which can easily be shown to have gained significant profit and power advantages over Germany by destroying both pipelines.

As I’ve already indicated on this blog, there are various ways to carry out an analysis or investigation one of which is the economic one of “follow the money” another is to look for how the power balance is tipped.

In neither case does Russia come in the top five of nations that would benift. As I said back when it happened Russia has had a very valuable barganing card taken off of the table. To argue as many were “It was Russian ‘wot dun it'” would require an extrodinary gain to offset the losses in power, profit and home prestige the pipelines gave to Russia.

I even argued it was more likely to be China or even Iran… And guess what… both they and North Korea have done very nicely out of the destruction of the pipelines. There is now a new strengthening aliance being formed which from US-Israeli perspective is already de-stabalising their grip on the middle east and shortly the West Pacific and South China sea nations. This in turn is effecting US longterm plans to “destroy Europe” and turn it into a collection of “cannon fodder” vassal states to fight new proxie wars in. Yes in the short term they are Dictating German foreign policy, but you can be reasonably certain that will be short term.

But even as I type the French and UK are becoming pragmatic about the new situation, not unexpectedly they usually do with third party threats. Yes the French and UK have faught with with each other for centries. But the behaviour is not fighting as “enemies” but “rival siblings”, thus when a third party sticks their ore in, the French and UK band together often very strongly.

Thus I suspect the “second” European axis Franco-British that hardly ever gets talked about, is going over the next few months to come to the fore over the Franco-German one, which most talk about (but has in reality been like other “Special Relationships” more wish thinking than dependable reality).

I guess we will just have to analyze and wait and see.

Clive Robinson • February 21, 2023 12:03 PM

@ Winter,

Re : Principles should not be changeable.

“as Russia does not submit to any international rule of law, criminal investigations involving the state Russia”

The fact that somebody does not play by your rules, should in no way prevent them from availing themselves of your rules.

We tried the logic you are eapousing in WWII at the behest of US Political Popularism. The result has been a disaster ever since.

Again the US decided unilaterally that the rule about “heads of state should not be touched” no longer applied except to their head of state.

Exceptionalism is the mark of babkrupt morals and ethics.

It’s “Might is right” trying to hide as “moral high groundism” behind the “for the common good” mantra. When in fact something is either good or bad. Not good when we do it and bad when done by others. There is no “common good” that is “mob rule” and “vigilanteism run riot”.

Such fluid morals flow only in one direction and that’s “down the drain”, dragging every ones reputation with them. So making it easy to portray every one in the nation as the “Great Satan” or similar, turning every citizen from the most innocent of babies to the vilest corrupter into what others see as “legitimate targets”.

And so the wheel will keep turning and the spiral keep digging down until such “quick buck” thinking ceases.

Clive Robinson • February 21, 2023 12:55 PM

@ Winter,

“You do not accept that the suspect in a murder case is allowed to access the crime scene by himself, using his own machinery, or contact witnesses outside of the courtroom.”

What I said was,

“Criminal codes in many Western Democracies allow either the harmed party or accused party to carry out their own independent investigations. There are rules in place to ensure that their enquires do not compromise evidence.”

In your haste you appear to have missed the all important sentance at the end.

Clive Robinson • February 22, 2023 3:46 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

Re : How hard can it be?

“Bots emulating humans.”

It turns out that the less a bot says in any given message, the harder it is for a human to tell if it’s a “bot or not”[1].

Likewise if it speaks in “mantra-speach” or follows accepred memes.

So a little while ago,

“MAGA is the right way”

Could easily be from a bot, or someone “doing the chant”/”being on message” or even being sarcastic. All the usual cues are missing and no “personality” comes through.

If you look at ChatGPT getting caught out it’s because it’s answers are too long and have a certain “personality” and for some strange reason to do this it “invents things” that can be shown to be false, often easily so.

Why it does the latter is unknown, but it could be argued it’s a deliberate feature to stop lazy students getting ChatGPT to do their assignments for them.

So the thing is Bots work best when they spew sound-bites rather than wax-lyrical.

But worse they don’t actually have to be read to work. In my above the brain just seeing “MAGA” gets it’s perception “auto-magically” adjusted, it’s a trick advertisers use in product placment.

Oddly whilst we hear a lot about “fake news” and “chat bots” we see very little in comparison on how to spot them…

Make of that what you will, but I’m sure someone will spin it up into a conspiracy of some kind, with shadow organisations of “AI-funding seeking drones” employed by mad Russian oligarchs payed by lunatic hedge-fund billionaires trying to grab control of world politics etc. After all the closer to the truth the better a conspiracy story is to push 😉

Oh and it also works the other way, what better way is there to hide the likes of Cambridge Analytica and Palantir than weaving conspiracy tales around them…

So knowing which is which can be hard.

[1] What that says about me and my sometimes overly long posts I’m not sure… As I sometimes joke,

“As an outsider to the human race I find it hard to keep up.”

Clive Robinson • February 22, 2023 8:13 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : Hell-on Rusk descending

You might find this of interest,

https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-twitter-fails-eu-first-disinformation-test-digital-services-act/

At some point that little bubble will get in deep enough that it implodes…

He could of course change his Terms of Service and make every EU citizen subject to swinging agreement and identity requirements etc and actually enforce it against EU politicians in say a Delaware Court, get judgment, convert that to criminal for non payment, and get them added to the “No Entry/arrest on entry” list.

Likewise he could keep the number of EU users below 45million by making all EU accounts “pay/month” again with swinging conditions in the ToS.

But what ever he is going to do, he better do it quickly, and if reports are anything to go by he does not have the staff to do anything other than,

1, Change ToS
2, Pull the plug on EU IP addresses.

So it could prove interesting in the near future.

Clive Robinson • February 22, 2023 8:32 AM

@ ALL,

Re : APT and GoDaddy

For quite some years now I’ve warned against using GoDaddy as it was obvious they were at best paying lip service to even simple security measures[1].

In short they had so cut resources to cut costs they had gone into a downward spiral.

Well it appears “some years ago” that lack of security alowed important source code to be stolen, thus malware installed as an “Advanced Persistant Threat”(APT).

Well apparently late last year they finally discovered anomalies that finally led them to find sufficient that they had no choice but to inform the SEC in one of their fillings…

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/godaddy-hackers-stole-source-code-installed-malware-in-multi-year-breach/

[1] The old “buyer beware” of,

“If it looks to good to be true, it probably is to good to be true.”

And,

“No such thing as a free lunch”

Holding in a hi-Tech world.

Clive Robinson • February 22, 2023 9:13 AM

Another past baddie MS IIS

For those who’s beards might still have grey in amongst the snowy white…

When we were “young” there was a couple of truisms,

“What ever the question, Microsoft is not the answer”

And a little ‘if it looks like a duck…’ type appraisal of MS-NT that concluded,

“NT is malware”

Whilst they were perhaps a smidgen unfair in the general case…

They were on point for MS “Internet Information Server”(IIS) and the advice was to not just sharpen your barge pole but get a decent extention for it. Or more technically go with Apache Server.

Well it appear some are still paying a significant cost for the “free” IIS,

“Frebniis: New Malware Abuses Microsoft IIS Feature to Establish Backdoor”,

https://symantec-enterprise-blogs.security.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/frebniis-malware-iis

So time to get an even longer extension for that barge pole.

Clive Robinson • February 23, 2023 3:04 AM

@ vas pup, ALL,

Re : Targeting developing nations.

“Q: Can Faraday Cage protect electronics against microwave beam?”

Yes fairly easily, look up TEMPEST screening.

However it’s quite expensive and heavy to do so even for individual items or whole fascilities also certain parts like very fine metal mesh to cover windows, air vents etc can be hard to source even in the US.

So whilst the millitary would use TEMPEST screaning, civilians and civil infrustructure would not.

So,

“The aim of Boeing’s CHAMP cruise missile is not for military targets but a countries civil population.”

Like their banking, finance and logistics sector and infrastructure control systems. Which makes it an internationaly unlawful weapon of dominence.

Also the effectiveness of radient weapons is limited by physics and is based on energy at the target and surface area of the effective antenna of the target.

So the beam has 1/(r^2) losses in freespace and considerably more in certain building materials which means the unlawful CHAMP cruise missile has to fly very close which is highly dangerous to civilians. It would also be limited to very short duration pulses as electrical storage energy density is fairly appaling at the best of times thus quite heavy for a UAV drone/missile.

But Also smart devices and laptops especially those in magnessium and similar “tough casing” are quite a bit less susceptible due to considerably reduced effective antenna area and metalic screening (the video of the room full of computers being effected was not from CHAMP it’s from another source, and was a “static test” of a large articulated truck sized EMP weapon and the computers selected to be way more susceptible than average).

Back in the 90’s I was involved with the design of jamming equipment to “Protect VIPs in vehicles” from terrorist and simmilar threat of IED’s for the Middle East and other areas where “nut job jihadies” valued their skin slightly more than the “Disposable DNA” types the older Qatari’s had financed.

You quickly learn that “broadband” as opposed to “select frequency” jaming is another range limiting problem. The attacker uses say 1kHz of bandwidth and you are trying to block 300-1000MHz of bandwidth. Which means on straight power terms at the same range you need 6-12db or 4-16 times the power to jam in the same bandwidth multipled by the bandwidth disadvantage 1000/0.001 so 16,000,000 times as much. Which is impractical using even the gas turbine engine out of an Abrams tank (1500hp ~= 1 mega watt). Plus unlike the defender the attacker can use directional antennas with gain.

Therefore you have to get your “jaming margin” in other ways one of which is by the use of An effective “modulation” wave form. Much of which is still highly clasified information but a little practical knowledge of physics and RF test gear such as “sweep oscillators” will give you most of it.

Another is to “get inside the range” that is at the receiver if you are 1/2 the range of the nut job then you only need 1/4 of the power you did at the same range due to 1/(r^2) effect. So the closer to the receiver –not necessarily the IED– the less power you need to jam.

Back in the early 1980’s one of the first engineering reports I wrote was about “The donut effect” the downside of vehical mounted antennas is to get most range you put the antenna on top to use the body work as a “groundplane” this means that the close in signal strength under that vehicle can easily be as little as 1/1000th and the fall and rise times of a vehicle at as little as 15mph is very very easily recognised by even the most simple of electronic circuits. Which means if the IED is in the road and it’s receiver antenna just at or below the road surface it can easily tell when the vehicle with the jammer in it is immediately above the IED (so don’t put the jammer in the VIP vehicle and use only roof rack antennas).

But also consider, to generate the waveforms and RF power for a jammer, you have to have very effective screening around the modulator and waveform generation electronics so you don’t “jam yourself” this tells you two things,

1, Yes screening works against even high signal levels.
2, The UAV drone/missile needs all that extra weight to protect it’s own onboard systems.

Which is also further evidence that Boeing’s CHAMP cruise missile is a weapon for use against second and third world countries civilian population and infrastructure, thus an illegal weapon of domination or as once called “Terrorism”.

Clive Robinson • February 24, 2023 5:42 PM

@ Critical,

“should be considered the result of a sick way of thinking that assumes evil intent in everything.”

Either you are very naive or Trolling.

I suspect most will think the latter and some will start looking into your “style”. And note the “pulling out of context to make it appear someone is saying something different to that they originally said[1]. Then they will realise a new handle, does not hide old ever thwarted intent of a lesser person

Back under your bridge.

[1] Note I preceded the comment you quote with,

“Thus it should not have been labled “almond milk” but “almond juice, milk substitute” (see the labyrinthine EU food product labeling rules).”

Thus you are actually saying of the EU legislature members,

“should be considered the result of a sick way of thinking that assumes evil intent in everything.”

Clive Robinson • February 24, 2023 6:06 PM

@ Winter, critical, all,

From the article you link to By Niamh Michail, dated 05-Oct-2017 some five years and near five months ago,

“The association that represents processed meat manufacturers CLITRAVI recently asked the European Commission to ban plant-based products from using meat terms ​​on packaging and advertising – protection that the dairy sector already has for terms like milk and cheese.“

Which just confirms what I’ve said about EU rules and legislators…

Thus further pointing out @critical is either very naive or a Troll or maybe both.

Clive Robinson • February 25, 2023 8:06 AM

@ Critical,

Re : your obvious traits.

Lets look at,

“If someone suggests, in almost every post here, that all people who are in a position to define policy in public affairs (politicians, experts, …) must be either incompetent, corrupt, or belong to the ‘dark tetrad’, then I’ll call that a sick way of thinking.”

Oh look you deliberatly limiting for effect again and taking out of context.

So you have significant cognative bias and or “cherry picking” to try to substantiate an ad hominem attack that is actualy both baselessness and deliberately inaccurate.

I suggest you go and look up the Dark Tetrad, and it’s nine symptomatic behaviours, as it effects between 15-20% of the population usually creating harm, sometimes significantly so.

You will also find why some but not all of them move into politics and rise up in hierarchies often “over the bodies of others”.

Your lack of understanding of this is either feigned for effect or you’ve been living a faux life.

And oh look more “think of the children” rhetoric,

“It is also exactly the type of propaganda that is designed to undermine democratic institutions, that makes some people participate in violent demonstrations, raids on the Capitol, etc.”

Usually a clear indicator that the writer is totally insincere and belives others are “sheeple” to be fobbed of and misled by false associations to faux existentialism or similar.

Again we see this self anointing superiority with,

“As to ‘stringing people up by their thumbs’, I assume you learned that while ‘wearing the green’, and probably consider yourself an expert at it. Maybe you could write a long post on how to do it with best effect.”

I suggest you go look up the colloquialism

“string them up by their thumbs”

You will find out it is actually not about torture, but “justice being seen to be done” much like “putting in the stocks” where an offender to the social good had their thumbs tied together a rope passed between that was then used to keep the offender “upright” in public sight.

As a saying it is now used jokingly as it has been for a couple of centries to refer to people who in the public eye deserve to receive a punishment that is already prescribed.

US President G.W.Bush is known to have used the expression several times whilsy speaking from within office (go look the records up).

As I pointed out the usage of “milk” you think is acceptable is actually prohibited in law in a federation far larger, far older and by most measures far wise than the one you clearly espouse for. And has been so for quite some time.

So sorry if you feel that my siding with what is lawfull is such a crime to you…

But then it says so much about you and your increasingly obvious inadequacies, including the need to hide behind a false identifier and keyboard which obviously in your mind makes you,

“Oh so brave, fighting for the man.”

Not even as praiseworthy as a fully discredited self appointed “social justice warrior”

If you want the location of a few Spanish windmills in La Mancha you can tilt at, just ask, a list can be provided.

Clive Robinson • February 26, 2023 9:37 AM

@ Critical

You need to brush up your Shakespeare.

Because, that way you would understand why, in Hamlet, Queen Gertrude commented,

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”

Your comments are not about me, but you and your inferiority issues, you insist on displaying in public for all to see, no matter how often you change your handle to try to hide behind it.

You have some squirrel in your head that runs around making you do the daftest of things as can be seen this time around.

Whilst it is amusing to a small extrnt to show you for what you are through your own words, it’s actually got to the point where it is nolonger amusing for anyone watching.

The fact you are also rude and uncouth and make poor judgment makes your ad hominem attack all the more obvious to all.

I could easily make further truthfull disparaging comment about you, but it would be moving into the area of,

“Cruel and unusual punishment”.

And contrary to your comments about tourture I try to inflict the minimum damage to get the message through. But you don’t appear capable of understanding the kidness of that and learn the lesson and withdraw holding the modicum of dignity you have left in your hands.

There is a glass ceiling on your capabilities, that is clear for others to see. Which for some unaccountable reason, you either fail to see or wilfully chose not to recognize, no matter how often you butt up against it. You appear to think you are acting above it, when in fact you are sinking ever lower beneath it. There are formal words that an analyst would use on observing such behaviours and they would advise a certain remedial course of action.

It is up to you what you do from this point on, but if you realy wish to behave as though you are begging to be stripped, humiliated, and beaten by beration then other people who were disinterested to this point will start to realise you for what you are and take interest.

They may feel sympathy for you and your broken mind, then again they may not. Some may see it as a blood sport, and thus see you as prey to be driven by the hounds.

As I’ve said where this goes next is both on and in your head not mine, but remember as always I reserve the right to self defence in the face of an attacker, no matter how weak or feeble in mind or body they are.

Today is sunday and a traditional Christian blessing to bestow onto others is,

“Now may the Lord of peace himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. May the Lord be with you all, now and forever…”