Pretty photograph.
The Squid Nebula is shown in blue, indicating doubly ionized oxygen—which is when you ionize your oxygen once and then ionize it again just to make sure. (In all seriousness, it likely indicates a low-mass star nearing the end of its life).
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.
ResearcherZero • November 25, 2023 12:39 AM
phpinfo disclosure (all environment variables of the webserver) CVSS v3 score 10
‘https://owncloud.com/security-advisories/disclosure-of-sensitive-credentials-and-configuration-in-containerized-deployments/
Additional configuration disclosure (even if not running in a containerized environment) CVSS v3 score 9.8 and 9
‘https://owncloud.com/security-advisories/webdav-api-authentication-bypass-using-pre-signed-urls/
–
Outage caused by cyber-incident.
“It is understood that a major outage from legal sector specialist infrastructure service provider, CTS, is having a major knock-on impact, with up to 80 law firms affected. …believed to include Taylor Rose, Gateley, Talbots, Setfords, and O’Neill Patient, among others.” (estate agents and conveyancers)
‘https://propertyindustryeye.com/eye-newsflash-major-cybersecurity-issue-preventing-transactions-progressing/
ResearcherZero • November 25, 2023 12:45 AM
“We were afraid, everyone was afraid,” said Lyubov Sayko, a nurse at the home. “It was like something out of a film,” she said.
She described how Russian men – some in military-style camouflage trousers, one in black glasses and holding a briefcase – had arrived to collect the girl.
Records show the girl’s identity was changed in Russia. Margarita was one of 48 who went missing from Kherson Regional Children’s Home.
https://istories.media/en/stories/2023/11/23/mironov-kidnapping/
“Polina says the Russians played a cruel game of hide and seek – moving Nikita at least three times in eight months – including to an orphanage in Russia.”
‘https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukrainians-accuse-russia-of-abducting-indoctrinating-children-60-minutes-transcript/
High-level officials from both countries, as well as agencies such as Russia’s Investigative Committee and security services in Belarus. From the occupied Ukrainian regions, the children were taken to the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, and then put on a train to Belarus. The transportation was funded by the Belarusian government, and state organizations were involved per Lukashenko’s approval.
https://hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/apps/sites/#/home/pages/belarus-children-deportation
–
Mustang Panda exploits legit PDF software and SmadAV antivirus to load malicous DLL and launch malware.
‘https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/stately-taurus-targets-philippines-government-cyberespionage/
CCP’s much-publicized “three warfares” (public opinion, psychological, and legal warfare) are means to conduct hybrid warfare.
The hybrid war against the United States also targets US regional allies, such as Japan and the Philippines, to degrade the image of the US-led security architecture as providing regional stability. Irregular units and fifth-column subversion of an enemy society mutually reinforce non-kinetic means to wage war.
“[Hybrid warfare is] a unified and coordinated act of war that is conducted at the strategic level, employing political (public opinion, diplomacy, law, etc.), economic (trade war, energy war, etc.), military (intelligence warfare, electronic warfare, special operations), and other such means.” ~ Gao Wei
‘https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/The%20Chinese%20Communist%20Party%27s%20Theory%20of%20Hybrid%20Warfare_0.pdf
ResearcherZero • November 25, 2023 1:01 AM
The Internet: IPv4 vs IPv6 (data visualisation)
“To the left, you see the well-entrenched and vastly utilized IPv4. It’s what the majority of the world relies on today. On the right is the slow expansion of IPv6, a newer protocol that represents the future of the Internet.”
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo5glK9czIE
–
The Outernet, a data storage network for harvested memories and consciousness, that exists across time and space.
A brief window into the eternal darkness:
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PUIxEWmsvI
Warning: uploading your consciousness and teleportation is extremely dangerous and comes with great risk.
&ers • November 25, 2023 10:30 AM
@ALL
Today i’ll introduce you the Nebula hacking group.
Matches greatly with the topic, isn’t it?
hxxps://nitter.net/Nebula00x
And especially one of their latest hack:
hxxps://nitter.net/Nebula00x/status/1725403128835559591
Ismar • November 25, 2023 3:33 PM
It looks like this story is now over and we are where we started from, I find the role the workers played interesting
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-26/openai-sam-altman-board-inside-the-chaotic-week/103149570
Clive Robinson • November 25, 2023 6:13 PM
@ Ismar, Bruce, ALL,
Re : Not understanding Genrrative AI at all.
“It looks like this story is now over…”
It’s not… Nor will it probably ever be, as long as people don’t think and fail to realise there is an actual proof against their arguments.
This is due to a very basic and incorrect “fundemental assumption” they are making. In the article you find this quote,
“Team go-slow is more like, ‘No, let’s actually, internal to OpenAI, do the research on safety so that we never put out a product with guardrails that can be broken.'”
You see there the fundemental assumption,
“… that we never put out a product with guardrails that can be broken.”
It can not be done, no matter how you test, how you write the code, or structure the corpus of data. If Generative AI exists –which is doubtfull– or even other types of AI you can not make it “safe”. And it’s already been proved though no doubt not many have yet realised it, and if they have all the symptoms of “Don’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs”…
This proof has been known for quite some time and it’s roots are pre WWII and around the early 1960’s became the fundementals of “Information Theory’ and the cryptography domain
Though the slow realisation is still happening in the AI domain, it’s roots started there through combined discussions on,
1, Issac Asimov’s “Three laws of robotics”.
2,Alan Turing’s 1950 question that gave rise to the notion of the Turing test.
3, That got questioned and answered in the 1980’s by John Searle’s “Chinese Room” problem/argument.
These discussions around 2010 morphed into the death knell of what people arm wave about as “safe – Generative AI”, if not the actual demise of “Generative AI” as a concept. As, Julian Baggini observed in 2009 in his assessment that Searle’s Chinese Room argument,
“[C]ame up with perhaps the most famous counter-example in history and in one intellectual punch inflicted so much damage on the then dominant theory of functionalism that many would argue it has never recovered.”
But others still armwave and chearlead for “functionalism”, it’s going to either get a rethink or left in the past, like Phrenology that arguably started Nueroscience.
But there is actually proof that the concept of “guardrails” for anything not jusy safety will never work.
I’ve explained the underlying issues in the past as to why E2EE can not be stopped.
Claude Shannon demonstrated that,
1, To communicate information fundementaly and unquestionably requires “redundancy”.
2, Redundancy used correctly gives “Perfect Secrecy”.
Indirectly he showed that,
3, Redundancy will always give communications channels within communications channels, it’s unavoidable.
A few years after that a fairly mild mannered man Gustavus Simmons thought about what Shannon had shown and the story of “covert channels” started. Gus however realised that there was an issue… And he found “Subliminal channels” in digital signature crypto systems due simply to the redundancy,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_channel
He called it the “Prisoners’ Problem” and it’s the crux of the matter of why AI can never be safe from users input.
Ironically in 1984 in a paper Gus Simmons describes how the “Prisoners’ Problem” can be solved for the prisoners through parameter substitution in digital signature algorithms. Hence,
“As long as there is prisoner selectable information, due to redundancy the user will always be able to communicate hidden information past any guard, no matter how the guards examine it.”
Further, by adding in “Perfect Secrecy”,
“As long as there is prisoner selectable information, due to redundancy the user will always be able to construct a communications system that the guards can not prove exists.”
In fact you can show further that even if the guards change the message a subliminal channel will always exist and therefor be available.
As the “guiderails” the Generative AI people witter on about are in fact directly equivalent to Gus Simmon’s “guards” you can now see the reason why AI in any form can never be “safe”…
Because users will always be able to get hidden information into the AI core, through any input guard/guiderail, determanistic or otherwise. And more interestingly with a little more effort get the AI core to hide the unsafe results from any output guard/guiderail determanistic or not.
Add ML to an LLM and the users will be able to hide unsafe information in the corpus as well…
But if you are doubtfull on this, consider “real life” no mater how we try, legislation and regulation will never stop crime as long as there is some even miniscule amount of freedom/agency at some point.
I’ve given sufficient pointers so if you want, you can write it up over a couple of hundred pages and submit it for a PhD 😉
JonKnowsNothing • November 25, 2023 9:08 PM
@Clive, All
re: Shift in generational wealth
A MSM econ article covered what it called “shift in generational wealth”, but it was not about what I first thought the term meant. (1)
Normally I would have considered the phrase to represent the transfer of wealth inheritance from the deaths of family members to other family members.
Of course, it does not need to be a family member; anyone that dies can leave financial assets to another person or entity.
However in this article, there was a turnabout in the use of that phrase:
The article continues on explaining that older Aussies are Livin’ La Vida Loca, while the younger generations slave with enormous amounts of credit card debit, education debt, housing debt, family debt.
It’s all the fault of older people using their retirement savings to sail into the sunset and taking advantage of … well… that they had still money to spend in their retirement accounts.
The article continues to explain how older people that have savings are getting a better deal than younger people who have no savings, no skills, no long term housing, no prospects for future wealth.
The observation that the economic policies since ~1970 have been designed to strip everyone of all assets and savings is not new news. Nor is the pessimistic outlook for younger cohorts, since asset striping policies continue to accelerate.
What is news is that there is a claim it’s a fault of older generations that managed to hold on to some of their wealth over the years, in spite of government claw backs.
It might not be too hard to guess, given the nature of global poverty and poverty in developed countries, that the few older people that have such wealth are a small percentage of the old people who are living on the barest of pensions. (2)
I suspect, that the real reason behind such views, is a New Economic Model to persuade younger cohorts it’s all the fault of their parents. Inheritance wars are legion; inheritance wars when there is nothing to inherit is problematic as there is nothing there to claw back, so there has to be a “reason given” which is …
===
HAIL Warning
1)
htt ps://www.theguardi an.c om/inequality/2023/nov/25/generational-wealth-gap-study-monash-old-to-young-debt-repayments-savings-rates
2)
ht tps://www.latimes.c om/california/story/2023-06-20/homeless-crisis-housing-californians-older-seniors-study
ResearcherZero • November 26, 2023 4:30 AM
@Clive Robinson
As far as I understand it, guardrails are those things you smash your nuts on, when you ultimately fail. The so called ‘fourth law of thermodynamics’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEmQMSN3boI&t=9
–
Privacy and Security ‘lite’
‘https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/google-chrome-will-limit-ad-blockers-starting-june-2024/
“Manifest V3 is another example of the inherent conflict of interest that comes from Google controlling both the dominant web browser and one of the largest internet advertising networks.”
‘https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/chrome-users-beware-manifest-v3-deceitful-and-threatening
–
There was no appeal for witnesses, and no attempt to match DNA traces to local suspects, even after inquiries had established the murder was one of a series of unsolved killings, sex attacks and abductions dating back more than 20 years. Fourniret and Olivier were living only 12 miles away.
‘https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/26/french-serial-killer-ogre-michel-fourniret-ex-wife-murder-joanna-parrish
–
Accounts from teenagers, who are capable of describing their forced removal and detention by Russian authorities, contradict the Russian narrative that Ukrainian children are finding safety and happiness in Russia.
‘https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/25/children-russia-ukraine-war-putin/
Clive Robinson • November 26, 2023 4:37 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing,
Re : A dead pilot is always to blaim.
“I suspect, that the real reason behind such views, is a New Economic Model to persuade younger cohorts it’s all the fault of their parents.”
There is a saying,
“The dead can not defend themselves”
And to a certain extent it’s codified in law…
For instance when it comes to residual wealth of a persons estate, you as a living person can attack their estate in oh so many ways and win (banks and lawyers asset strip them all the time). But it’s hard for an estate and it’s chosen benificiaries to get what was owed to the person when they were still alive.
It’s where you see someone left out of a will –usually for very good reason– blackmail the executors by saying “give me go away money” or they will get lawyers to not just lockup the estate, but strip the estate voa lawyers fees etc.
In the UK there used to be the use of trusts etc where you could put your assets into an “eternal legal entity” that your chosen heirs managed and in return received certain benifits such as living in the “big house” and managing the “farm and land” around it thus having the benifit of the profits to maintain the house and occupiers life style (you need very little money to live very comfortably when someone else is responsible for all but the usual day to day expenses everyone else has).
But as the value of property increased it was not just the “landrd gentry” that started using such trusts, and the very wealthy who obtained their wealth by various forms of asset stripping were not amused, so trusts are now stiched up with all sorts of rules, that get changed all the time.
So some people decided to use another etetnal legal entity of a company but all their assets in and by use of A and B shares avoid most of the issues of trusts.
But the UK Gov decided to rig property sales tax for homes worth more than around a million pounds. Which in the South East of England a house with a little over 1000 square feet and a small front garden barrly large enough to hold the plethora of “Wheelie bins” being inflicted on people by using “green policy” as an excuse[1] can easily be more than the sales tax threshold. So smarter people put their homes into a company as an asset and then sold the company and not the property, thus not pay the sales tax. So the UK Gov changed the rules again. But always there is a loop hole that only those who can have very exprnsive lawyers working for them as “employees” can aford.
One of the more recent wheezes was to make farmland free of inheritance tax… A short while later fatmland was so valuable, farmers either sold out, or borrowed heavily. Thus having the opposit effect of the declared intent of trying to make UK farming sustainable across generations.
I have friends who purchased farm land when it was very cheap, as they wanted a less stressful and more sustainable life style. They converted it to “set aside” as “woodland” thus got EU compensatory grants but grew certain types of sustainable trees and plants… (look up “coppicing”[2]). The little legal change has caused them a bit of a shock as to just how much it is now all worth, they joke about being the “neo-gentry”, still “dirt poor” but now “Lord and Lady Muck”.
So as with all government tax fiddling and asset stripping there are those tiny few that do extrodinarily well because they fiddle back through hidden loop holes. By far the majority that get stripped naked because they can not fiddle back. And in between a lucky few who by chance did things for entirely different reasons who get a windfall out of it.
[1] It is a curse inflicted by central Government via favourd corporations to in effrct asset strip local councils and the “rate payers” (local tax payers). The councils are forced to “out source” the service, and the service providers are a cartel, that have the power to force the councils to buy wheelie bins, so that they can do the service as quickly thus profitably as possible. It’s been a total environmental disaster, but the likes of those corps known now ad “Crap-iter”, “Sludge-Co” and similar tell you what their services are actually like.
[2] You can earn an eternal income off of coppicing,
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/managing-trees-and-woods/types-of-woodland-management/
Oh and do it right and you will have living “wooden fences” that are not just alive but grow fruit and nuts as well, and you can put in certain types of non intensive farming live stock, that are minimum managment of near “live wild” such as ducks, grease, goats, and even if you are very careful deer. And although you are not alowed to build a home… You can put in farm buildings, that have “office space” thus amenities that over the years could be converted via various tricks.
Winter • November 26, 2023 5:32 AM
@JonKnowsNothing
It’s all the fault of older people using their retirement savings to sail into the sunset and taking advantage of … well… that they had still money to spend in their retirement accounts.
I do not know how it was in the US, but after WWII, the memories of the dying old from before the war let many European countries to install mandatory retirement funds. The stock crazes of the 1980-2010 era lead to these funds doing pretty well. Those who bought a house in the 1980s boom, and could keep hold of it, ended up to benefit from the boom in housing prices. As a result, many pensioners in Western Europe (- UK) are pretty well off.
The plight of the younger generation is more dire as they have a lot of expenses and falling income. Both are utterly unrelated to the fact that their (grand-)parents are better off.
Given the chronic labour shortages we are seeing now and in increasingly in the future, the future of the younger generation is bound to become brighter.
Just watch, all those wealthy pensioners will have to pay their offspring to get any fun from their wealth. These younger people are becoming more expensive by the month.
Clive Robinson • November 26, 2023 7:49 AM
@ Winter, JonKnowsNothing,
“Just watch, all those wealthy pensioners will have to pay their offspring to get any fun from their wealth. These younger people are becoming more expensive by the month.”
It sounds good but there is a serious flaw in it.
“Only a small percentage of the old are wealthy, but the costs will rise for ALL old.”
Thus all the workers will have to pay for the majority of the non working old.
The solution in the UK is make the old work longer thus increasing the work force numbers and bringing down yet again the opportunity for the young to prosper…
It’s actually a “no-win” game, the reality the longer we live on average the longer we will have to work… Not so bad if your job is not physical… But hell on earth if it is.
China tried cutting the birth rate, but that failed miserably as the percentage of the population that was old and infirm rose very rapidly and there were not the young to attend to their needs of the old as well as being economically active for society to function in a positive dirrection.
One of the reasons in Europe “Defence spending” dropped like the proverbial “lead kipper” was the “peace dividend, payed for pensoners and their health and social care”.
Only a lunatic militaristic government spends anything like 4% or more of GDP on offensive weapons of war that the US thinks is the appropriate minimum (but then look at the middle east “petro-dollar cycle” to see why the US are so in favour of such spending)… It’s the reason for the very strange nuclear device and delivery systems economics[1].
But Japan also has an aging population and way to small younger generation population problem as does much of the West to a certain extent.
The side effect of industrialisation is people live longer and have way less children so the populations become significantly unbalanced.
One solution is “import the young” from other places, but it takes not much thought to see why this does not solve the problem only “kicks the tin can down the road”.
If as some think “Generative AI” will solve this they are deluding themselves. As Santyana observed those who don’t learn from history are condemned to relive it.
The only potential way “Generative AI” –if it is actually possible– could be kept “safely under control” is by making it “generally useless”. That is strictly controling the input / “senses” and the output / “agency”.
Even then it’s not going to be “truely safe” because it’s not possible…
As I’ve noted “guardrails” will not work as Gus Simmon’s “Prisoner Problem” from the 1980’s has proven. And the more obvious fact that crime still exists despite more than four thousand years of legislation and regulation…
Evolution comes in two forms,
1, Individual
2, Group / Societal / species
What may be good for one is by no means always good for the other. It’s why I talk about,
“Individual Rights v. Social Responsability”
When it comes to “agency” of a “Directing mind”.
Those few “wealthy oldies whooping it up” are from the “societal responsabilities” view point burning past the resource caps and recklessly consuming stored resources that should be there for society to progress safely…
But from their “individual rights” view point, they are only enjoying the fruits of their labour…
Good like trying to “unsquare that circle”.
[1] The US, Russia and more recently China, and India see nuclear weapons as a way of “Building / Maintaining” empire. That is they believe in the fact they can destroy a potential opponents military capabilities in a “first strike” surprise attack and take them out of the game (they actually can not because there is no “end game” where you win if you try[2]).
[1.1] Knowing this empire policy exists other nuclear capable nations work on the more sensible “Keep off the Grass” policy. Which I’ve mentioned before with regards North Korea, Iran, Pakistan etc in defence against the declaired US nuclear policy of empire building by “bomb them back to the stone ages” if they don’t do as they are told.
Such nation states don’t have large numbers of war-heads or particularly sophisticated delivery systems, brcause they don’t want the expense. Thus their small “hiden” nuclear capability comes into play if the US / Russia / China / India “first strikes”[3]. So even though crippled/destroyed their hidden capability then takes out not the military targets of the first striker but their production and surrounding civilian population centers that are large and can not be hidden. Thus the populations of the US / Russia / China / India supposadly act as a “boat anchor” on governmental empire building plans.
[1.2] But how does one potential first striker stop another potential first striker… such as Russia stopping the US? Easy you make the detetant larger… that is you let it be known that your nuclear deterant is a number of automated doomsday devices that will “kill the world”[4] if they do first strike.
[2] An empire by definition is parasitic and kills off the host, which in turn kills the empire. The exception to this is trading states that build each other up by forward economic development by creating “value added” on available raw resources to items of more utility. But even that dies unless it stays within the total resource cap[5]. Curently the Earth is effectively a closed environment like a “Garden in a bottle” Energy comes in at high frequency and by a process of radiation transport goes out at a lower frequency. You can look up the formular for the energies and see the difference which is thus available for “work”. Go above that limit and the garden dies… Go below it and some of the excess energy gets stored all be it quite inefficiently. Thus the stored energy can act as a buffer against the energy cap falling as it does over night, seasonally, and longer cycles untill it rises again. The problem is that some mistakenly believe you can cheat the accounts indefinately…
[3] The UK for instance has four nuclear submarines that are almost “closed gardens” themselves that spend long periods of time “hiding under the oceans of the world”. They watch for certain “tell tales” that indicate a potential first strike has happened against the home nation. The Capitains then open a sealed secret letter hand written by the Prime Minister of the day and follow the instructions within.
[4] Think several ships the size of oil tankers sailing in fairly shallow waters stocked with hundreds of the most powerful nuclear devices ever invented mixed in with ways of making them extreamly “dirty”. If it goes off the resulting steam clouds of very dirty nuclear isotopes will go up into the upper atmosphere, and drop out all over the world, killing enough that a tipping point is crossed and the rest of the world dies as a result (or nearly all, natural disaster has in the past apparently wiped out all but about 6000 people and we’ve recovered).
[5] Currently the only resources that come into the earth is energy from the Sun and the occasional rocky snow ball. What goes out again is the ultimate in polution which is heat energy by infa-red radiation. Elements lighter than air such as hydrogen and hellium also “escape into space” and in more recent times we’ve put a lot of junk up there as well along with human crap… One way to increase resources is by making the effective size of the Earth bigger. Which is why research money is being spent on solar collector design, asteroid mining, and off earth manufacturing. What is not “feeling the love” of such money, is “enlargening the tail pipe” of getting waste heat energy and the like out of the earth and it’s environs.
Clive Robinson • November 26, 2023 8:27 AM
@ PaulBart,
“Old people living it up is the problem.”
Or living too long, etc, etc.
The real problem is “not in the curves” that very poorly document the past, but that can be seen in places like NASA.
An astronaut has maybe six months productive working life, but spends more than half their physical life “training” for it and after, either training the next generation or switching to some other activity before switching again into “semi-retirment” and eventually dying suddenly getting on for around the century mark.
The problem is even most hi-tech jobs don’t have an economically productive “after” latter half.
When young I assumed I would slow down as I got beyond 35-40 but I’d never retire unless my brain gave out in some way (remember dementia is one of the biggest killers in the West).
Society in the West is “fixated” on do one thing and then get into retirment as a reward…
The trouble is even amongst the wealthy they don’t find retirment welcome and certainly not a reward… Worse there are statistics that say on average you only get 15-20 years retired then die…
Yet many who keep their brains active and frequently are economically productive live into their 90’s or even into 110’s.
But with increasing frailty of body or mind, thus needing economically unproductive support from the young.
The solution is to solve the frailty issues, and for people to have not one career in life but several.
I myself have had several careers as an “engineer” and part time “scientist” and our host @Bruce looks like he is also doing the same.
If we accept when young there is,
“No Job for life, then retirment”
As used to be the case with brut manual labour and very early death in an infirmed state, we would all benifit untill we hit the excess population issue. Which is best solved by “Getting out of the garden bottle” of Earth before we get anywhere to close.
JonKnowsNothing • November 26, 2023 10:19 AM
@Clive, @Winter, All
re: Will GenAI solve the problem of cohort numbers
The answer GenAI will come up with is the same answer we saw during SAR-CoV-2 pandemic:
This can be surmised because this is the answer that good old fashioned economic modeling came up with and Anders Tegnell promulgated as The Solution during the pandemic. As GenAI works on historic data, that’s the answer. Some historic data is disturbing in of itself and didn’t require a pandemic to implement, so one can add that bit of ugliness to the AI Dataset.
There are at least 2 problems
They do not have the same answer but the first pass will be “cut out the old”. This removes all the saved wealth but the mechanisms to do it, render the wealth to the state.
The second pass, remains to be seen because I probably won’t be around long enough to see what governments do about the common realization among younger cohorts that the goals of their grandparents, parents can no longer be met or sustained under the current mechanisms. There isn’t enough funds in the work cycle to do it.
A good number of people, including Elon Musk, have realized owning a house or even renting an apartment is a total waste of their earnings; so they couch surf, live in a RV or camp, dial-in to remote work or boomerang back to their parents.
If it turns out, that enough younger people decide RE is not a viable use of 70% (2) of their monthly income, that will come a shock. There have been fluctuations before in the market (post 2008) but surprisingly interest rates suddenly plummet to an affordable level when housing stock is not selling.
When people think of inherited wealth we automatically think of negative connotations of the super wealthy or aristocracy. This applies only to a fraction of the 1% of the super wealthy. Today’s super wealthy have not passed down much of anything that is inheritable. Many donate to self-aggrandizing charities or have invested in other businesses but not passed along sustained wealth. It is not clear if such wealth can be sustained over multiple generations.
The crux of the problem with inherited wealth for the majority is the amount is quite a small number by comparison. $5,000 – $30,000 – $100,000 etc. It’s not in the same scale as the super wealthy but it is enough to help the follow on generations a bit. This is the wealth that is missing.
It is also the wealth that is facing a claw back by implying that grandparents and parents need to spend these funds now, instead of passing them along when they die to be used by the next generation.
===
1) iirc(badly) Economic analysis of wealth generation showed that most wealth was created by Great-grandparents. Grandparents lost a lot but managed to hold on to a good percentage of the wealth. Parents were not able to add anything to the generational wealth pool. Current generations have exhausted all the wealth accumulated over the last 3 generations. The primary reason they have not created more generational wealth is government claw-backs and unfavorable taxation and unequal application of tax rules.
2) iirc(badly) One of the problems of getting homeless people into an apartment is the cost of the apartment, furnishings, utilities etc take up a majority of any stipend the person has. They have been through multiple rounds of setting up an apartment only to lose access later on. Living in a tent is cheap but uncomfortable but it does allow them to use their stipend in other ways.
Winter • November 26, 2023 10:40 AM
@Clive
It’s actually a “no-win” game, the reality the longer we live on average the longer we will have to work… Not so bad if your job is not physical… But hell on earth if it is.
Basically, people should work as long as they are fit to do so. The “loss” of marketable skills should be covered by continuous education. Employers who erode the health or skills of their employees should be pay the costs.[1] Is the work to hard to be sustainable? Then it is unhealthy and employers should pay. [2]
The fact that this is not “feasible” now just shows that the current system is not sustainable.
[1] RSI was solved this way.
[2] As is done in Japan:
‘https://www.oecd.org/els/emp/Working-better-with-age-Japan-EN.pdf
Call Me Late For Supper • November 26, 2023 11:24 AM
According to the web pages of American cellular service provider Consumer Cellular:
-If you click into or otherwise follow
bread crumbs from one page into others, you agree to receive cookies.
Further, the PII that they say they may collect is needed to supply and bill for services. That cludes: name; address; phone numbers(sic); email; driver’s license; >>> SSAN <<<<. Seriously? Soc. Sec. Account Number??. Would love to hear their justification.
AL • November 26, 2023 1:43 PM
Now that AI is rolling out, here in the US, I have access to two free AIs, Copilot in Windows 11, and META AI in WhatsApp.
Copilot can take an audio inquiry and speak the answer. So, we now have Spock’s computer from Startrek.
This stuff is going to give governments fits, because instead of adding bias, it can remove it, revealing the truth, as opposed to what a duplicitous government would want people to believe. From what I see right now, this is a huge improvement to simply searching on an issue and trying to decipher the results.
Don’t know where we’ll be in the future, but in the present, try it out if you have access. I’m 100% aboard with what I’m seeing so far.
Copilot needs a bit of help in its interface provided to the user, but, I’m not seeing a problem in the content generated. (A few minor mistakes.)
To stack Copilot against a known, like Microsoft Office, Copilot is far more useful to me.
JonKnowsNothing • November 26, 2023 2:11 PM
@Clive, @Winter, All
re: Speaking of …
A couple of MSM stories touching on the topic of claw-backs and cost of housing as a gating mechanism.
HAIL Warning
MSM 1 ROBOTAX DEBT
I suspect GenAI at work here or a revised version of ROBODEBT. ROBODEBT was aimed at people getting any form of services support. ROBOTAX is aimed at everyone who is working. Under normal circumstances tax liability occurs from Income generating activities, like work.
MSM 2 Livin’ La Vida Loca
At a University in California, student housing is so expensive and there is not enough housing to begin with, students are living in RVs, Campers so they can afford to pay the tuition at the school.
They were recently evicted from the parking lot.
Schools in this category not only have standard 18-24yo cohorts, they also have “returning students” who are either finishing a degree that was put on hold years earlier or getting another degree in a different field. These are the 50+yo group and some are much older.
The objections to student RV campers is the same rhetoric as for other homeless encampments or RV Camper Safe Zones.
In cities like San Francisco, there are many ordinances to prevent homeless from staying near where centralized services are located. They really have no choice except to be near those offices.
There are also ordinances against sleeping in your car. It’s illegal to take a nap in your car or sleep in the park. Eating your lunch in the park in SF can get you killed. (3)
===
HAIL Warning
1)
h ttps://www.theguardian.c om/australia-news/2023/nov/27/distress-and-confusion-at-ato-letters-warning-of-on-hold-tax-debts-from-decades-ago
2)
htt ps://www.latim es.c om/california/story/2023-11-26/cal-poly-humboldt-students-who-live-in-vehicles-are-ordered-off-campus
students living in sedans, aging campers, a converted bus, who could afford a $315 annual parking permit but not rent — found one another on campus parking lot G11. They started parking together in a row of spaces and named their community “the line.”
$53 fine for living overnight in their vehicles, $40 for those whose vehicles were too large for one spot
“These aren’t evictions.” Cal Poly Humboldt spokesperson Aileen Yoo
The university would soon prohibit students from sleeping in cars.
[One student has a] 1995 Chevy Coachman, purchased with a loan that costs $600 a month. Also taken out $25,000 in student loans for tuition and fees and works an on campus job for living expenses.
A dorm room shared by three people and a required basic meal plan is expected to cost at least $10,900 per student
3) iirc(badly) A born in SF person, went every day to the park to eat lunch. The person was a student of law enforcement and also worked as a security guard. The person was a fan the football team and had just gotten that year’s brand new NFL certified team jacket. 2 different tech-bros jogging through the park saw the person sitting on the bench eating their lunch. Both tech-bros outraged that the person was sitting in THEIR PARK, called the police and said there was a gang member sitting in the park. The police responded and less than 30seconds after arrival they shot the person multiple times and killed them.
The 2 tech bros got bad press but nothing else. One of them moved to Marin County where other like minded tech-bros live. Nothing happened to the multiple police officers that fired their guns either.
vas pup • November 26, 2023 7:22 PM
AI system self-organizes to develop features of brains of complex organisms
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231120124246.htm
“Scientists have shown that placing physical constraints on an artificially-intelligent system — in much the same way that the human brain has to develop and operate within physical and biological constraints — allows it to develop features of the brains of complex organisms in order to solve tasks.”
Read many interesting details.
Clive Robinson • November 26, 2023 9:36 PM
@ vas pup,
Re : Physical constraint on AI.
With regards,
“Scientists have shown that placing physical constraints on an artificially-intelligent system…”
For a journey to get to a desired destination it obviously needs to start –i.e. “First Step”– and also make it in the right direction.
For a “Digital Neural Network”(DNN) to work like a “Biological Neural Network”(BNN) it has to follow the same or similar journey[1].
Consider an analogy, if you look at “a street map” that just shows roads you will take a route that is a close approximation to “as the crow flies” but with kinks. However if you look at “a survey map” that also shows gradients you might well chose a route that is a close approximation to either the most efficient or least taxing.
As I’ve previously noted DNNs lack senses, and thankfully so far they’ve not realy been given physical agency. Which is why I further noted that DNNs have no meaningful concept of distance or perspective because of this lack of bi-occular input and lack of physical agency.
So DNNs appear to end up using street maps… Where as nature does not follow streets unless there is an advantage to them (which surprisingly to many there often is not with modern streets).
Importantly I’ve noted that the DNN nodes realy are very different to BNN neurons as they do not function in the same way, further they are mapped together very differently.
This applying of a “distance cost metric” to inter DNN node connectivity is perhaps the first step of the journey. As not only does it favour economy of connections but the shorter spanning distance of connections. Which more accurately mimics what we see with BNN neurons.
But other things must change. DNNs work by linear summing of weighted inputs which whilst fast for certain types of usage is grossly inefficient and highly prone to errors.
It’s also not natures way, which uses what is effectively a logrithmic system, thus large signals are less likely to swamp out important changes in small signals.
BNN neurons are also more like a time based pulse system feeding what is effectively a leaky integrator which has rather different charecteristics to DNN node output non linear transforms.
So I can see the journey towards efficiency and effectivness.
[1] Yup it looks like a trite and obvious statment, and you would think it would go without saying, but…
JonKnowsNothing • November 26, 2023 10:43 PM
@ vas pup, @Clive, All
re: DNN nodes really are very different to BNN neurons as they do not function in the same way
There are several aspects to add to the complexity of vision.
1) How to create a digital map of a variable structured biological map. Different species see things differently, some have monochrome vision, some have color vision, some have deficits in aspects of vision (focus, retina pattern, color deficiency).
2) For humans there is another under recognized aspect but one that is well studied by artists and some sight researchers is how do objects get recognized at all. When do we know a square forms what is called a box. When do we recognize the edge of a street as a curb. How does the brain+eye travel across a work of art.
All artists study how to compose a painting or photograph so that the human eye travels along a path that the artist intends as the line of interpretation. Generically it’s along the Left Diagonal to the Bottom Right Corner, then up to the Upper Right Corner and down the Right Diagonal (forms an X: \ – | – / ).
AI Art does not create this as it is simply a kaleidoscope montage of blended images already in the dataset. If the base set has the X then the output may too, but if the base selector is abstract work that uses a different pattern AI will not add the X travel line.
But there is a another aspect of human sight or sight cognition is not available to AI. From early studies on loss of sight in childhood before any sight cognition is formed and then restorative medical procedures returning the technical function of the eye system, it was found that such surgeries were not effective after the child was ~14yo. At that time, it was realized that even though the eye and vision system were working normally, there was no cognition of what was being seen.
Humans see things at the very base level as lines. Lots of lines. Lines are delimiters to everything. If we do not have the development of this aspect of sight, then we are unable to “see” objects. So lines are very important to humans.
Another aspect is symmetry. Humans do not like unsymmetrical objects. We like lines, squares, rectangles, circles and symmetrically wavy lines (sine/co-sign). We do not like anything unsymetrical. It bugs us.
We like rooms to be proportional and symmetrical. Walls should have the same dimensions. Even in interesting architectural design like geodesic domes, the panels are symmetrical.
An aspect of children’s art is the development of full cognition of objects, trees are not lollipop trees and the development of symmetry: an object on one side is balanced by an object on the other side. It does not have to be the same object, but the symmetry is in place: House on one side, Family on the other.
There have been some medical developments in understanding diseases that were previously considered “untreatable psychiatric hallucinations” where a person is unable to draw a symmetrical round clock. The clock looks more like the outline of a crescent moon and not a circle. This comes from a disease process, often an undiagnosed virus, that impedes the brain function on one side of the brain that permits us to draw symmetrical objects.
Along with other conditions, these undiagnosed virus infections may have happened a long time ago but the residual effects are activated by an unknown mechanism. Long COVID is an example of long lasting, latent virus infection.
This aspect of human vision is not understandable to GenAI. AI can mimic existing dataset contents but fails at this very fundamental condition. It is not something humans “learn” like ABCs, its part of the brain development from 0-14yrs.
An example in the animal world is predators. Many are not triggered by the physical presence of prey. They are triggered by movement. If a fawn bolts from under the nose of a cheetah, the cheetah give chase to the movement. If the fawn remains immobile then the cheetah may not realize the fawn is one pounce away.
Humans are also triggered by the chase. It causes a great deal of death and catastrophe when police are triggered into “chase mode”. It’s not really something they can control intellectually, it’s a built-in human visual trigger. Once the chase is initiated the emotional tags and adrenaline surge erupt and it never really ends well, for the fawn or the human.
SpaceLifeForm • November 27, 2023 2:43 AM
Old man yells at clouds
Looks like a Cluster
‘https://support.google.com/drive/thread/245055606/google-drive-files-suddenly-disappeared-the-drive-literally-went-back-to-condition-in-may-2023?hl=en
ResearcherZero • November 27, 2023 3:02 AM
All those annoying procedures, safety protocols, standards and rules. Trucks for example, and all those crazy regulations. Who came up with that idea? We’ll just scrap all that.
The ignition problem we can sort out later, after we get the vroom vroom sound right.
‘https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/11/elon-musk-and-tesla-ignored-autopilots-fatal-flaws-judge-says-evidence-shows/
The company instructed employees to avoid leaving a written record of complaints.
“I can’t read emails unless they’re critical to Tesla. It is literally physically impossible.” …for Musk to read emails (of legal importance)?
Canis familiaris • November 27, 2023 3:39 AM
@SpaceLifeForm
Validated restorals of backups on independent hardware are your friend.
(Most people say “Backups are your friend”. But the point is, a backup is not a backup until you have successfully restored it on independent hardware and checked its integrity. You also need at least three copies of data: the ‘in-use’ data, a local (validated) backup, and a remote (validated) backup, so a local catastrophe doesn’t destroy everything. Doing backup properly is hard. Doing it securely, even more so. Relying on ‘a cloud’ to ‘just work’ doesn’t, as some truly unfortunate people are finding out.)
Clive Robinson • November 27, 2023 5:09 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm, Canis familiaris, ALL,
Re : Cloud data is not yours.
“Looks like a Cluster”
You left of the dred “F-Word”…
To many “Failure is not an option” is just “managment speak” to engineers and similar it used to be a design goal (which as @ReseatchrZero notes about Hellon Rusk and Tesla appears to have been thrown out the driver side window).
The “Cloud” is supprising to many not at all knew. We were complaining about it’s risks before Concord did it’s final flight twenty years ago with AWS already in public use.
But actually “The Cloud” is one of a succession of infrastructure computing that started back prior to the 1960’s with what was a multi-terminal concurrent user system connected to a central computer that brcame known as “Mainframe” or “Big Iron”. That was serviced by technicians who often knew quite a bit about basic electronics and “Fault Finding” to resolve the many “F-Word” conditions in systems that went down more often than dropped ice cones from little hands.
Thus “Data Resiliance” was of very high importance way more than a working lifetime ago.
When “Personal Computers” came into the picture in the 1970’s responsability for “Data Resiliance” became a “user issue”. But with the advent of “CheaperNet” RG58 coax based Ethernet and the likes of Novel 68000 based file storage systems it became the “systems administrators” job again, and “Harry in Accounts” was the man for the job… Then along came “thin clients” where nobody realy knew who was responsible for “Data Resiliance” but reliability had progressed to the point most nolong thought about unless the data quantities were large and needed on a regular basis, which is where the interesting diversion into Data Warehousing got started and this lead due to the use of Web Browsers to the fun of MiddleWare and all those lovely security issues we still see today, that amoungst other things alow data to be exfiltrated on mass via the Internet.
It should be said at this point that all this fliping and flopping of responsability for Data Resiliance is very much due to Senior Managment, Accounting Company Consultants, and MBAs they inadvisably listened to and neo-con mantras about money such people had drilled into their heads from the Chicargo School excuses for those with personality failings.
Before Concord had it’s Swan Song some of us were waving not just our arms but big red flags over “Data Resiliance” and “The Cloud” and used the then available statistics about how many companies survive the loss of a data center and data (basically none).
But as variation on the old saying has it,
“Money talks best advice walks”.
Some may remember my little comments about Microsoft UK’s Managing Director (CEO equivalent) discovering a friend of mine turn up on her home address door stop to “serve papers” because they had locked a company out of the Microsoft Cloud and all it’s data…
Well thankfully that company has bucked the trend and is in recovery from the near fatal hit it suffered. But it is nearly the only one.
Dig into those “Service Level Agreements”(SLAs) and contracts with Cloud providers, you will find lots of stuff on how they will get your data in, but from then on nothing but the quivalent of empty promises.
So remember when it comes to “The Cloud” and Data remember,
“It’s their data not yours, and there is nothing short, of the high court, that will get them to perform in any way”.
Many many years ago before even I was around 😉 in 1935 when the idea of a computer was still a mathmatical concept rather than an actuallity, a Song was written and recorded.
Called “Don’t put your daughter on the stage Mrs Worthington” it’s lyrics with just a few minor word changes such as Data for Daughter and Cloud for Stage would make it much more contemporary,
Canis familiaris • November 27, 2023 5:35 AM
@Clive Robinson
For an encore, how about: “There are bad times just around the corner.”?
Winter • November 27, 2023 6:37 AM
@Canis, Clive
Relying on ‘a cloud’ to ‘just work’ doesn’t, as some truly unfortunate people are finding out.
Allan Jude and Jim Salter from 2.5 Admins podcast always stress that Cloud is not a backup and 1 backup is no backup. The thing about restoring a backup copy to be sure it actually works too is a given.
The real paranoid have mirrored dual machines locally and copied mirrored running systems in different cities/countries/continents.
The backups come on top, just in case.
Clive Robinson • November 27, 2023 7:46 AM
@ Winter, Canis familiaris, ALL,
Re : Backups are not just storage media but a system thus vulnerable as a system.
“The backups come on top, just in case.”
And as @Canis familiaris notes
“There are bad times just around the corner.”
And the wise rats have indeed left the BBC (I was once one in Engineering design in Power Rd Chiswick that nolonger exists).
But as I have pointed out about secure message apps not being secure in “the system”…
Which is also why in the past I’ve also pointed out that with APT-Ransomware threats, “A” backup system is not in any way secure, no matter how you do your backups. Not only is it an “engineering single point of failure” it’s also a “Data Resiliance” / Data security issue as well.
So you actually need the main functional backup system and a minimum of a fully issolated system to “test the stored media on”. Which with some backup media is a very large issue with very problematic answers to questions few appear to think about or consider…
For instance, because any Ransomware operator that is realy serious is going to be APT as well, and so get at the backup system as a priority.
As a simple example they modify the driver to the backup media and turn it into the equivalent of an “Inline Media Encryptor”(IME) for which only they have the KeyMat.
So every byte written is encrypted by the driver before it gets to the storage media. And if read back “through the same system” gets decrypted so at any level above the driver the backup appears OK, even though it’s not.
If they have it in place long enough all of your carefully rotated child, parent, grandparent backups get encrypted and you have nothing when the APT ransomware operator “yanks the key chain”.
A second fully issolated test system which does not have the modified driver / correct key will read back only encrypted data that will appear as “stochastic garbage” when read, so should immediately flag up there are serious issues to be investigated long before all the backups get encrypted by the APT-Ransomware operators.
The fact that so many ICTsec, SysAdmins, and Managment, don’t consider “How to attack the system” thus how to prevent or mittigate threats is rather worrying. Because not doing so means the backups in reality are a waste of time other than for being a tick on an auditors checkbox list…
Sadly I’ve told people who have consulted me for my advice, and most ignore this particular step…
I’m guessing that the reason Ransomware operators are not yet doing APT type attacks, is that so many backup systems out there are so badly run the quantity of “low hanging fruit” is such that the ROI on APT is currently negligable.
Which is a fairly sad indictment on the entire ICT industry and especially the Managment in ICT using organisations leagaly charged with protecting “shareholder value” thus opening themselves up for misfeasence and malfeasance accusations if not legal action.
Look on it as “Wanton” if not “Willfull” conduct or mis/mal management[1]. Which as @ResearcherZero has indirectly pointed out above Hellon Rusk and Tesla are about to find not just reputationally but fiscally very damaging…
[1] https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/willful-and-wanton-conduct
emily’s post • November 27, 2023 9:16 AM
@ Clive Robinson @ To Whom it May Concern
single point of failure
“… put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.”
Clive Robinson • November 27, 2023 11:51 AM
@ emily’s post,
Re : The Twain view.
“M. Twain, inventor of the Twain driver”
Did you know that Mark Twain was most frequently heard where “swinging the lead”?
Where the depth was not just fairly shallow, but at best as clear as Mississippi mud, thus often most concerning to those commanding.
But of more concern is the “To whom…” such 1800’s politness was oft acompanied by the inability to breath or move due to whale bone, canvas, horse hair and linen all starched to the edge of leathality and of flamability that did kill thousands…
Such were the corsetry and crinolines of that age, you would have thought there would have been a collective sigh of relief to see the back of them for good. But no… mid last century it came back with “A Line” and “Swing dancing” into Rock-n-Roll. And I’m told by a certain “fashionista” I know that there will in all likely hood be a resurgence this comming year for spring frocks that are above the knee…
My father once told me of a comment by another famous author which was[1],
“The female knee like the workings of a cistern are best kept concealed.”
But bearing in mind the date last week William Evarts quote of,
“The pious ones of Plymouth who, reaching the Rock, first fell upon their own knees and then upon the aborigines.”
Comes to mind.
[1] Not as some think, Eisenhower who said in a similar vein,
“Ankles are nearly always neat and good-looking, but knees are nearly always not.”
fib • November 27, 2023 12:28 PM
Re: Electronic noses
If the objective is to achieve AGI within the paradigm of neural networks, it seems essential to classify and annotate the chemical signals corresponding to smell and taste, just as we do – already in an advanced fashion – with visual and aural signals. Repeat the process for touch – a mix of thermal and pressure sensors – and then map the correlation strengths in the entire inputs pool – in real time – and you will then have the minimum necessary to start replicating the human experience.
Relevant:
‘https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aal2014
Clive Robinson • November 27, 2023 2:05 PM
@ fib, vas pup, ALL,
Re : Smell is not easy.
“it seems essential to classify and annotate the chemical signals corresponding to smell and taste, just as we do”
Only we don’t maybe…
It keeps changing.
Most of us smell Pizza, not the individual components, as some do and apparently dogs etc do.
That is we smell the spectrum and match it to a mental “mask” shape not individual chemical resonances. Thus it was assumed that “Smells like Pizza” was an accurate representation.
And thus it’s been argued smell is due to the shape of the molecules.
However… there is a problem with taste, which is “tasts like mint” and “tastes like orange” does not work… Genuine mint and genuine orange together is plesant on the tounge and nasal receptors. But try it with anything that “tastes like” and it’s horrible…
Which is where IR resonance came in. However since the mid 1990’s the argument for quantum effects has been voiced,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21150046
The argument has “fliped and flopped” as can be seen by the following historical view,
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2018.00025/full
Which basically concludes not very much other than better measurment and interdisciplinary cooperation is needed.
But this has led on to more recently it being found that humans are, easily able to distinguish “Heavy Water”(D2O) from ordinary “Water”(H2O) just by taste (not smell). That is heavy water is noticably sweeter…
So it’s not just resonance in the IR band, but apparently “quantum resonance” we get taste and potentially smell from as well
(unless of course somebody flipps it again…)
Thus the problem is two fold,
Firstly we can not mimic biological smell as it’s different in related animals like mammals.
Secondly we still have no real clue as to how it actually works, just some tests and statistical models.
Thus the ill defined to the point of nonsense “human equivalent” “Generative AI” where DNNs are forced into mimicary of BNNs by use of sensor constraints is quite a ways out yet at best and may never happen.
My money is on “other methods” of getting DNNs to function more similarly to BNNs. But to be honest I don’t think even getting close will solve the AI issue.
lurker • November 27, 2023 2:33 PM
@Winter, et al
re cloud is not a backup
The sad thing reading through that thread was the number of people apparently using G-drive as their main drive, with no (other) backup. The only polite word I can use is “unwise”. But then my snobbery kicks in, and if G is trying to save people the trouble of setting up their own cron job the rsync over ssh, then what are they playing at?
One of the replies suggested the data still existed in local cache. Unerased? Since May? …?
Jacklyn • November 27, 2023 3:44 PM
cloud is not a backup
More generally, any service for which the provider disclaims all liability is not a proper backup. How much does Google promise to pay you in compensation for losing data? My guess is “less than nothing”, in that they probably make the users agree to imdemnify Google.
Also consider how much notice any provider is required to give you about changes or shutdowns. In the case of Google, shutdowns are a clear and present danger. If they say they’ll maybe tell you 2 weeks before they delete it all, you’re setting yourself up for a ruined vacation. (Well, Google’s not likely to even promise that, but other companies might, and if they’re not bankrupt they might even hold themselves to it.) Transferring the data could take days, if you’ve even got something to dump it onto.
If you’re running a company, and the loss of data could cost you a million dollars for example (in lawsuits or otherwise), you need a provider that will indemnify you for at least that much. You’re not likely to find that in the consumer space. And while it might be tempting to do backups to 2 or 3 separate cheap companies, it’s not so easy to verify they’re actually independent of each other—they might all be using the same “cloud” provider.
Canis familiaris • November 27, 2023 4:59 PM
@Jacklyn
And while it might be tempting to do backups to 2 or 3 separate cheap companies, it’s not so easy to verify they’re actually independent of each other—they might all be using the same “cloud” provider.
Now, ain’t that the truth. Same as people who buy their data connections out from a location (to anywhere) from two ‘separate’ suppliers – suppliers who will buy their backhaul from the same upstream provider, but for reasons of commercial confidentiality, won’t know about each others contract with that same upstream provider until it’s too late.
No way that ever happens, ma’am.
- • November 27, 2023 11:56 PM
@Dr Schneier:
From Austria:
Digital insurance prototype projects
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5CNli3UekTk
Using required person RFID ID with 10m range and bio-monitors required in all insured automotive vehicles with continuous conection to change insurance premium immediately.
Autopilot behaviour changed by insurance premium.
fib • November 28, 2023 6:35 AM
@ Clive
Thank you for the insights, sources.
That is we smell the spectrum and match it to a mental “mask” shape not individual chemical resonances. Thus it was assumed that “Smells like Pizza” was an accurate representation.
In this particular point would say that our senses also lack the precision to discern between subtle chemical differences. We group sensations into large categories [‘Smells like pizza’], without much resolution, so I don’t think this will be a problem in conceptualization by an AI.
So it’s not just resonance in the IR band, but apparently “quantum resonance” we get taste and potentially smell from as well
You touch a nerve. I am also of the opinion that quantum effects must be taken into account if we want the full picture. As you certainly know, years ago [decades?] Roger Penrose raised the hypothesis that quantum activity in neuronal microtubules is an important, perhaps fundamental, part in the emergence of consciousness/intelligence[1]. I would say it has to be.
At the end of the day, I have said to you that I’m also an AI skeptic. I don’t think this kind of a platonic AI that we have will take us further than the complete disorganization of the job market. I also think it is inhumane, unethical, to create a brain in a vat, condemned to reason like a human about things it does not experience like a human. Giving senses to AI is not only necessary to achieve a really strong AI, it is imperative.
AI is still a classical computing process, and fears about it are severely misplaced, bordering hysteria.
My opinions and ideas are actually stress tests. I want to see at what point everything falls apart.
[1] ‘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
&ers • November 28, 2023 7:04 AM
@ALL
hxxps://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-hackers-russian-defense-ministry-system-1847409
hxxps://informnapalm.org/en/hacking-of-the-information-communications-department/
Winter • November 28, 2023 9:08 AM
AI as a petard to be hoisted with.
Want to be more diverse? Create some fake profiles of non-existing speakers:
DevTernity conference collapses amid claims women speakers were faked
Anna? Oh, she was just a demo persona, says organizer
In a post on Friday, Orosz said two women listed as speakers on Sizovs’s DevTernity and JDKon conferences were invented. JDKon is due to take place in May next year; DevTernity is, as we said, now off. There are currently 20 male names on the DevTernity speaker list, including the likes of video game designer John Romero and Ruby-on-Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson; there were four female names, and now three.
echo • November 28, 2023 2:50 PM
Brianna Ghey Murder Trial.
WARNING: People (especially free speech absolutists) are warned in advance that they may not make comments which prejudice the trial. They risk being held in contempt of court or risking a mistrial. Also the accused are minors and may not be identified nor may any information which may cause them to be identified be published. Criminal penalties apply.
TRIGGER WARNING: Linked trial coverage contains graphic detailed descriptions of a violent and distressing nature.
NOTE: The trial is expected to take four weeks.
Trial Day One.
https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/23949620.recap-said-brianna-ghey-murder-trial-day-one/
Trial Day Two.
Domain experts attention is drawn to the use of mobile phones, and open internet websites and service providers, and use of TOR to access the “darkweb” during the planning and execution of this crime (which is not disputed) and subsequent activities, and police methods of working in securing an arrest including CCTV and dashcam and cloud storage, and the presentation and articulation of evidence during the trial; and forensic evidence of a more direct nature.
Disclosure and context:
I attended a vigil for Brianna which was one of approximately 130+ candlelit vigils held across the UK including England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Vigils were also held or observed internationally in the Republic of Ireland and France.
A number of high profile people at home and abroad either attended or gave their condolences such as Andy Burnham Mayor of Greater Manchester who attended with his daughter to Lynda Carter the original Wonder Woman. While reading her annual list in Parliament of the names of women killed by men Jess Philips MP named Brianna Ghey. Brianna will for forever remembered in the Parliamentary record.
https://theconversation.com/brianna-ghey-how-vigils-help-lgbtq-communities-grieve-200657
It is a public opinion held by the community that the media, Conservative government, and others including but not limited to domestic and foreign far right and far right adjacent organisations and individuals, and “dark money” funding sources fueled a rise in hate crime and public policy and healthcare system attacks on the community which preceded the murder of Brianna Ghey. Further information on this is well researched and documented and publicly available.
Please be sensitive to the family of Brianna Ghey and her memory and the many people who knew her and those around the world deeply personally effected by her death.
Rest in power little angel.
This is a one time post. I will not reply to anyone commenting on the content nor will I post further.
ResearcherZero • November 28, 2023 9:13 PM
BR/EDR Secure Connections pairing MitM. Six novel attacks breaking Bluetooth’s forward and future secrecy by targeting session establishment.
“If a successful attacker can reduce the encryption key length below 7 octets, the attacker may be able to complete a brute forcing of the encryption key in real-time, permitting live injection attacks on traffic between the affected peers. All prior and subsequent attacked sessions are vulnerable to being decrypted.”
‘https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/key-attributes/bluetooth-security/bluffs-vulnerability/
“We hope our fix will soon be added to the standard and implemented by the vendors. Moreover, we recommend to vendors implementation-level mitigations that can be adopted while waiting for an update to the standard.”
(i) we should pay more attention to session establishment vulnerabilities, attacks, and fixes effective across sessions,
(ii) we should agree on the definitions of Bluetooth’s forward and future secrecy and update the standard to discuss these definitions and related risks,
(iii) we need open-source Bluetooth firmware (Controllers) and better tooling.
‘https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3576915.3623066
–
Stolen chip design documents and code.
“According to the log files that Fox-IT finds, the hackers come every few weeks to see whether interesting new data can be found at NXP and whether more user accounts and parts of the network can be hacked.”
To break into NXP, the hackers initially used credentials from previous data leaks on platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook and then used brute force attacks to guess the passwords. They also bypassed double authentication measures by altering phone numbers.
‘https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/11/hackers-spent-2-years-looting-secrets-of-chipmaker-nxp-before-being-detected/
“Besides using the Cobalt Strike beacon, the adversary also searches for VPN and firewall configs, possibly to function as a backup access into the network. We haven’t seen the adversary use those access methods after the first Cobalt Strike beacons were installed. Maybe because it was never necessary.”
https://web-archive-org.translate.goog/web/20210620162513/https://blog.fox-it.com/2021/01/12/abusing-cloud-services-to-fly-under-the-radar/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US
“As AD machines are rarely rebooted, Chimera could potentially control machines for a very long time without detection.”
“The malware altered the NTLM authentication program and implanted a skeleton key to allow the attackers to log in without the need of a valid credential. Once the code in memory was altered, the attackers could still gain access to compromised machines even after resetting passwords.”
‘https://medium.com/cycraft/taiwan-high-tech-ecosystem-targeted-by-foreign-apt-group-5473d2ad8730
ResearcherZero • November 29, 2023 1:09 AM
Do you need any oversight? It looks like you have been doing an absolutely cracking job by yourselves.
‘https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/29/bruce-lehrmann-defamation-trial-the-six-lies-he-admitted-to-under-cross-examination-ntwnfb
“They’ll cast a wide net and wait patiently until the time is right to exploit someone.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/11/523416914/russian-spies-go-to-tactics-for-entangling-people-bribery-and-blackmail
Every indication is that this will get much worse.
‘https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7bx4v/russia-traffickers-spies
So be careful (where you purchase your cocaine from) before celebrating. Your secrets will always come out and there will always be a reckoning.
https://www.news.com.au/national/courts-law/bruce-lehrmann-sings-revised-version-of-i-fought-the-law-in-unearthed-footage/news-story/2df0270028da6516492f0bbcf403b7c4
–
The report into Pezzullo’s behaviour will not be released to the public.
https://theconversation.com/mike-pezzullo-sacked-after-scathing-findings-accusing-him-of-misusing-his-position-218592
The Public Service Act restricted the disclosure of information about possible breaches of the code of conduct. His termination without compensation comes as the government has committed to fix a loophole that enables public servants to avoid any sanctions from possible code of conduct breaches by simply resigning.
‘https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pezzullo-sacked-after-inquiry-into-text-messages-20231127-p5emyp
Pezzullo boasted of his efforts to make press freedom a “dead duck” and repeatedly lobbied Briggs to convince Morrison to introduce a media censorship regime.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/five-years-a-thousand-messages-how-a-top-public-servant-tried-to-influence-governments-20230919-p5e5ss.html
–
Beijing also aims to cultivate a group of foreign influence operatives. Verified Twitter accounts, amongst a number of other approaches.
‘https://ad-aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/2023-11/Singing%20from%20the%20song%20sheet.pdf
AL • November 29, 2023 12:14 PM
@Fib
AI is still a classical computing process, and fears about it are severely misplaced
There is one fear that isn’t so misplaced, and it is the fear by governments that love to lie on an objective AI that tells the truth. I’ve tried various AIs, and ran into a “woke” one and others that give filtered results. What I’m hoping for is an objective AI that tells the truth, and is the antithesis to this war on inconvenient truths by governments and individuals alike.
Right now, comparing to cars, I’m seeing the Model-T version of generative AI. I got 6 of them now, and want a lot more.
JonKnowsNothing • November 29, 2023 3:48 PM
@Clive, @Winter, All
re: UK Nottingham City declares bankruptcy
In the scope of supply shocks, when a city declares bankruptcy all sorts of things begin to collapse. A number of US Cities have done the same and the aftermath is not nice.
In the USA, Flint, Michigan is one of the notorious cases (2014) where the state-appointed emergency manager, acting solely on recovering profits from the destitute city, summarily made a change in the water delivery system that affected hundreds of thousands of people.
The wheels of that chariot ran over a lot of people. It eventually ran over the state appointed manager (case pending 2021).
We can just about track the wobble in western austerity economics. Economies do not like to collapse, they wobble along for a long time. It takes some small incident to collapse the structure. We have loads of ancient cities, and city ruins and dead empires to know that it can and does happen.
We do not always know what that catalyst is but punches a powerful blow, strong enough to topple empires.
I was surfing Greek History and clicked my way to Sparta and its history of economics and citizenship. It turns out that not that much has changed globally. In our current structure the names have changed to make them more palatable.
Current events prove an interesting duplicate.
===
ht tps://www.theguardian .c om/uk-news/2023/nov/29/nottingham-city-council-issues-114-notice-in-effect-declaring-itself-bankrupt
https://www.theguardian .c o m/society/2023/nov/29/nottingham-city-council-wasnt-reckless-it-was-hollowed-out-by-austerity
h ttps://en.wikipedia . org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
h ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta#Structure_of_Classical_Spartan_society
The other classes were the perioikoi, free inhabitants who were non-citizens, and the helots, state-owned serfs. Descendants of non-Spartan citizens were forbidden the agoge [education].
htt ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartiate
ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perioeci
ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helots
ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agoge
Clive Robinson • November 29, 2023 5:42 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing,
Re : Sparta and other Helenic cultures.
They had in modern eyes some very peculiar habits. Which Europe later copied, that gave rise to the equivalent of “Stud Book Breeding” that is still used for “Pedigree Dogs” (and is a form of animal cruelty look up scored hips in “german shepards”).
So Spain lost it’s Royalty to inbred sterility years after “the jaw” made them to ugly to look upon.
But in Sparta you had as you quoted,
“… except for the firstborn son in the ruling houses… “
The indicative signs of “The King Game” gone hereditary and the eventual fall of the “Political Classes”.
It’s still argued in some circles if Rome fell due to such inbreding or to the fact they cooked with acidic wine and lemons in lead pots[1]. Along with other delights such as “rotted fish sauce” we still use today under a nicer name.
Either way their political classes went to the dogs.
It’s argued that the wonder metal aluminium used in 1950’s sauce pans etc might be contributing to dementia, we don’t officially know… But if the UK Gov “runs true to form” will hold the information back untill any potential claiments are long dead.
As for Nottingham and similar. Yes it goes back to Mad Maggie Thatcher in the 1980’s and what is known in the US as the evil that.was Reaganomics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics
The real problem is the self appointed “haves” want the “have nots” to pay for what they use and abuse without payment. So trucks that provably do a thousand or more times the damage that even an SUV does drive through residential areas destroying the infrastructure as they go, but paying not one cent in restitution.
As I’ve noted before US infrastructure is flaky at best because it’s “put up on the cheap” to reduce cost by shifting it into “future maintainance”. Which thanks to “Don’t leave cash on the floor” neo-con mantras gets stolen away as profits with the inevitable result, eventually “the pot cracks and the water spills” but there are no reserves that should have been saved up to buy a new one in a timely “preventative maintenance” schedule.
When you hear people going on about “Big Government taking from their pocket” you know exactly what is going to happen down the road, and Flint was just an example of the haves ensuring the have nots payed for the haves using and abusing.
It’s why I talk about,
“Individual Rights v. Social Responsability”
It’s about balance not just now but in the future, and ensuring continuity, not “Boom and Bust” with the haves trying to “Run into the Sunset” or like Texas Politicians going south to Mexico for the “Big freeze disaster” they very predictably created. And it would have been a lot lot worse if other more sane heads had not managed to push in some small measure of “hybrid vigour” into the system.
Yes “Resiliance costs” but life is about cycles. The grain stores in Mesopotamia tell us that some ancient rulers understood this very well. Even modern religions tell there participants to keep a year of food and water at home not just to see them through but others as well. My parents who were born before and later faught in WWII taught me about resilience from before I could walk. They understood with clarity what the question,
“What’s in the Pantry”
Realy ment and the implications behind living on food that was preserved and stored two or more years before. I am gratefull to the many unknown Americans who during the 1950’s before I was born who sent food parcels to Britain, without them I would probably not be here. Hence it shocks me to see what has happened in just under a three score year and ten life time.
Those that espouse the modern supply chain and still do, were as predicted “deluding themselves” and I did warn in advance it was,
“Against the way nature works.”
Then C19 and the truth kicked in “big time”.
But years earlier I made myself unpopular here amongst some for warning about “out sourcing” and “off shoring” and the effects it would have[2]…
Look around you now and ask was I wrong and others right?
[1] Later in Europe tomatoes were assumed to be poisonous… Because they used pewter plates which has a very high lead content and the acid in tomatoes leached it out.
[2] Effects I’d seen before in the electronics and vehical manufacturing industries and the Far East conglometates killing indigenous industry simply by taking a long term view. They in turn fell into the short term view and it’s why the past few years in IC manufacturing has been so chaotic which has effected other manufacturing like vehicles and house hold equipment. Doing things on the cheap now, has very great expense just around the corner in the not very distant future.
ResearcherZero • November 29, 2023 10:05 PM
A cyber-attack hit the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency this summer.
https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20231129-152511/
Press Conference
‘https://japan.kantei.go.jp/tyoukanpress/202311/29_a.html
–
‘https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2023/11/28/exploitation-unitronics-plcs-used-water-and-wastewater-systems
–
“these are things women go through”
https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/brittany-higgins-witness-lehrmann-defamation/
Someone might want to get themselves secretly sworn into five different ministries for example…
The previous Respect@Work report languished in then attorney general Christian Porter’s drawer for more than a year.
‘https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/15/the-predictable-backlash-after-the-recent-fallout-from-the-lerhmann-trial-cant-undo-metoos-momentum
The government also joined with One Nation to block other amendments to the Sex Discrimination and Fair Work (Respect at Work) Amendment Bill. These would have changed workplace laws to ban sexual harassment, protected victims of sexual harassment from massive legal bills, and reviewed the Fair Work system to ensure that sexual harassment – using the definition in the Sex Discrimination Act – was expressly prohibited.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-forces-women-to-keep-playing-whack-a-mole-20210905-p58oz0.html
His case is next due for mention on December 13 over the two other charges.
‘https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-01/bruce-lehrmann-lawyers-receive-alleged-rape-mobile-phone-data/103048350
We care a lot
About disasters, fires, floods and killer bees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GnGwlBRe7w
ResearcherZero • November 29, 2023 11:53 PM
The system has been disabled and is being operated manually.
‘https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/municipal-water-authority-of-aliquippa-hacked-iranian-backed-cyber-group/
ResearcherZero • November 30, 2023 1:14 AM
@Clive Robinson
Thatcherism’s econocrats, “private sector good, public sector bad”. Or what was called at the time ‘The New Public Management’.
–
“Nuclear bomb to kill a mosquito. Full marketisation of the system has failed. Change to the sector would require sustained political leadership.”
The inquiry, done by a House of Representatives committee, finds the system can’t be fixed by “tweaks”.
‘https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/privatised-employment-service-system-must-go-says-report-20231129-p5enss.html
Getting your beliefs right is pretty fundamental to acting well as well. Assembly members were almost unanimous in criticising standards of behaviour among those in public life, and they felt strongly that existing mechanisms provided insufficient remedy to unethical conduct.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/apr/landmark-report-shows-uk-citizens-are-deeply-concerned-about-their-democracy
Don’t know what they do, but I don’t want them to do it!
‘https://csrm.cass.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/2023/3/Taking_stock_-_January_2023_Tracking_paper_0.pdf
–
Journalists whose data has been secretly trawled by law enforcement agencies are unable to determine if they have been the subject of search warrants because it would breach their own privacy, the commonwealth ombudsman has argued.
‘https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/03/ombudsman-argues-against-allowing-journalists-access-to-their-own-search-warrants
“Journalist Information Warrants allow at least 21 government agencies to secretly access journalists’ and media organisations’ data for the stated purpose of identifying a journalist’s confidential source — thus placing the journalist in breach of their ethical obligation to protect the source’s identity.”
If this warrant is granted, it remains secret and the journalist is unable to challenge it. Further, the warrant has a life span of six months before it needs to be renewed and grants access to data up to two years old.
https://pressfreedom.org.au/journalist-information-warrants-f8df82b21ca5
“if your employer monitors staff use of email, internet and other computer resources, and they’ve told you about the monitoring, this would generally be allowed”
‘https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/30/australian-privacy-watchdog-refuses-to-investigate-employer-that-allegedly-accessed-employees-personal-emails
JonKnowsNothing • November 30, 2023 12:35 PM
All
re: Wrong encryption target?
A MSM report that the City of New York, New York, USA is going to encrypt their police radio frequencies across their entire spectrum.
Most of the report is about non-police uses for listening to the scanner channels.
The excuse is: The Hayden One Question
It will be interesting to see how long this lasts, both technically and in legal terms.
===
HAIL warning
ht tps://www. theguardian. c om /us-news/2023/nov/30/nypd-police-radio-dispatches-encryption
Clive Robinson • November 30, 2023 8:42 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing, ALL,
Re : NYPD half billion dollar radio encryption upgrade.
“It will be interesting to see how long this lasts, both technically and in legal terms.”
On the technical side the encryption decreases the effective range of “Two Way Radios”(TWRs) by quite some. Because not only do you have to maintain the data sync you have to maintain the encryption sync. Also the required bandwidth goes up by quite a bit so 4kBT noise floor lift comes in.
In London the Police “were sold a pup” when they went digital with TETRA “Airwave” and it’s seen by most as unreliable and fails to achieve objectives… So the unexpected upgrades and the infinite delays mean that apart from “Foot Plod” –also called FireFlys by some– many police officers now carry multiple mobile phones…
The result of which is the UK Home Office is switching to ESN supplied by EE Mobile. There are three problems with this,
1, EE don’t have the UK covarage, and they don’t own the cell sites or equipment they have “out sourced”.
2, Worse ESN is “4G” so will be out of date and 5G or even 6G will be the norm before ESN gets going so the out sorce issue will raise an ugly head.
3, The problem with mobile networks is in quite times thy work but as the “London Bombings” showed the mobile networks go down when stressed.
EE claim that the third issue will not be because the ESN mobiles will be given priority… Well I’m sceptical forva whole bunch of reasons not least humans will try any trick to get a call through when worried about loved ones. If enough keep turning their phone on and off then the network will get swamped as the amount of energy at the receiver front end goes up.
You might want to learn a bit more about the effect of encryption on police radios it is a salutory lesson in Chaos Theory. In the UK Cambridge Universty did a paper about it I think called “Why Johnny Still Can’t Encrypt” which looked at KeyMat issues.
But as a general recent view for “scanner users” and ESN have a shufty at,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BlFR9sB7sns
And a couple of other vids on his channel.
ResearcherZero • November 30, 2023 9:50 PM
@Clive Robinson
It’s a preferable situation than trying to teach or train police officers, though a step up from employing robots. Most appreciate the improved security. 🙂
[Lame joke regarding message retrieval]
–
Kenneth Chesebro has agreed to sit down with Nevada investigators in hopes of avoiding prosecution.
‘https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/30/politics/pro-trump-attorney-who-oversaw-fake-electors-plot-cooperating-in-nevada-criminal-probe/index.html
Conspiracy to Commit Forgery and Conspiracy to File False Documents (and racketeering)
The alternate slate of electors, the Chesebro Dec 6 memo says, would submit their own certifications. Chesebro said the vice president could then count these electoral votes instead of the legitimate votes on Jan. 6 to upend the election results and potentially keep Trump in the White House.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/chesebro-dec-6-memo/ce55d6abd79c2c71/full.pdf
Chesebro’s December 6 and December 9 memos predate Eastman’s own two memos on this topic. Chesebro also edited Eastman’s first memo outlining a “Jan 6 scenario,” which Chesebro wrote was “Really awesome.”
“Chuck Grassley or another senior Republican who agrees to take on the role of defending the constitutional prerogatives of the President of the Senate.”
Chesebro wrote that “politically this will insulate” Pence “and the President from what will happen next.“
‘https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-DOC-Chapman004708/pdf/GPO-J6-DOC-Chapman004708.pdf
Wilenchik wrote that “‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes” and added a smiley face emoji.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html
ResearcherZero • November 30, 2023 10:48 PM
HomeKit vector. Might be NSO.
‘https://citizenlab.ca/2023/11/serbia-civil-society-spyware/
Chrome and Zyxel patches to avoid unwanted visitors.
‘https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/30/chrome_zeroday/
ResearcherZero • November 30, 2023 11:36 PM
Displayed an image. ‘We are in total contorl of your entire’ …water pump. Unitronics updates PLC software and errata.
‘https://cyberscoop.com/pennsylvania-water-facility-hack-iran/
–
ResearcherZero • December 1, 2023 2:58 AM
‘https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html
“No matter what, evidence doesn’t exist in a vacuum — partisanship, ideology, and belief systems matter too.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827316300714
Stakeholder engagement strategies for intelligence delivery.
‘https://mandiant.widen.net/s/nvnljhtpjg/requirement-driven-approach-to-cti-white-paper
–
“I miss the days of just sort of feeling like you could create a community by talking in a sane and cheerful way to the world.”
https://calnewport.com/neil-gaimans-radical-vision-for-the-future-of-the-internet/
Subscribe to comments on this entry
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
vas pup • November 24, 2023 6:13 PM
The electronic noses designed to prevent food poisoning
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67354443
“The human nose and its ability to smell is an amazing thing.
Each nose has around 400 scent receptors that are said to be able to detect around one trillion different odours.
To replicate such a level of sensory expertise in scientific equipment is a
daunting challenge.
Yet thanks to recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), the latest
electronic noses – high-tech sensors that can detect and report specific smells – are quickly improving their levels of speed and accuracy.
Their proponents say that they can transform food safety.
Common types of potentially deadly foodborne bacteria are salmonella and E. Coli.
Both of these have their own “electronic personality”, says Prof Raz Jelinek, the co-developer of an e-nose called Sensifi, and a professor of chemistry at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel. “They have their own electrical signal.”
The e-noses made by the Israeli company of the same name contain electrodes that are coated with nanoparticles of carbon. They detect the smells or volatile organic compounds (VOC) given off by bacteria.
Different strains of bacteria produce a different VOC fingerprint, which in turn creates a different electric signal in the Sensifi machine. This is then recorded by an AI software system, which checks it against its ever-growing database, and notifies the user. Sensifi, which launched earlier this year, hopes that it can transform the fight against infection in the food industry. Its chief executive Modi Peled says that in most cases food producers currently have to send samples off to a laboratory for testing, and then wait a number of days for the results to come back.
By contrast, Sensifi’s e-noses can be used on site by the food firms themselves, and are said to give their results in less than one hour. It hasn’t released a price for its machines, but says they will be “low cost”. The firm instead intends to make most of its money from subscription fees.
At German firm NTT Data Business Solutions it had a novel way to help train the AI that powers the e-nose it is developing – coffee.
In one test, technicians spent three days putting instant coffee powder next to the AI’s sensors. The AI then had to identify one of three options – good coffee, bad coffee (coffee that had been laced with vinegar), and no coffee at all.
“An odor isn’t just a gas, it is a unique combination of gases,” says Adrian Kostrz, the firm’s innovation manager. “And very often there are variations or very small differences in the way things smell.”
In New Zealand, a company called Scentian Bio, says it has copied the antennae of insects to develop its “biosensors”. This has seen it replicate insect proteins, and include them in its scent sensors.
Andrew Kralicek, founder and chief technology officer of the firm, says that as a result of this biotechnology its sensors are “thousands of times more sensitive than a dog’s nose”.
!!!He adds: “We can use this biosensor-based tech virtually everywhere – in food and flavor quality control, food pathogen detection, non-invasive rapid
disease diagnosis, sustainable farming, and environmental and wellness monitoring.”
Applications for security are obvious.