It’s squid parts from college dissections, so it’s not a volume operation.
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.
vas pup • December 22, 2023 6:54 PM
Israel’s StemRad inks $4.5m contract to shield US troops from gamma radiation
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-stemrad-inks-4-5m-contract-to-shield-us-troops-from-gamma-radiation/
“Israeli-American company has developed shielding technology gear to protect first responders, defense forces, and space explorers from deadly radiation and nuclear threats.
Israeli-developed technology will be protecting US troops against potentially lethal gamma radiation and help them to be better prepared for a nuclear incident on American soil.
StemRad, a developer of Israeli-made radiation protection suits for space explorers, emergency responders, defense forces, nuclear industry workers, and and medical personnel, has secured a $4.5 million contract with the US Department of Defense for the acquisition of its radiation protection shields for the US National Guard.
As part of the contract, the Israeli-American company will provide 630 of its protective 360 Gamma belts to soldiers and airmen tasked with responding in cases of domestic radiological incidents, such as dirty bombs, terrorist or military attacks, or accidents that can include a nuclear reactor meltdown. In addition, StemRad will provide onsite training at the National Guard Consequence Management Support Center in Lexington, Kentucky.
StemRad’s technology doesn’t try to protect the whole body, but aims to selectively protect organs with exceptional sensitivity to radiation, like bone marrow in the hip and in the vertebrae, and the gastrointestinal system.
Fifty percent of the body’s bone marrow is located in the groin and midsection areas — the parts StemRad suits protects, ensuring that workers and first responders are protected against the effects of radiation sickness but are able to maintain freedom of movement needed to assist others.
StemRad’s technology has also been tested in space. NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I space mission launched its debut flight, aboard which were dummies wearing the company’s AstroRad, an anti-radiation suit co-developed with US defense giant Lockheed Martin to protect vital organs from gamma radiation.”
Clive Robinson • December 22, 2023 8:05 PM
@ &ers, ALL
Re : Anonymous prepaid SIM cards.
“How is this at your side? Mandatory?”
Last time I looked which was a while ago you could still buy £5 SIMs off of market stalls and the like in London for cash and just stick them in a phone.
The thing is anonymous SIMs do not remain so for very long, unless all people in a closed comms group practice very good OpSec.
Which makes me suspicious of Governments that demand non-anonymous SIMs. Because most people can not practice any kind of Comms OpSec even if their life depended on it.
So why do it…
My view is that it’s like cheap locks on doors,
“Not to deter crooks, but To keep honest people honest”.
ResearcherZero • December 23, 2023 1:06 AM
On sh–t…
To control and purify the body, or it’s ‘breeding’ is an utter delusion. We have around 20-25,000 genes in each of our cells, but the human microbiome potentially holds 500 times more.
The early 2000s was a period of longing and nostalgia. A wanting of escape into the past. Where as today is dominated by a fear of change and the rapid development of technology. Brideshead Revisited itself was set in a moment in time, an era of empire, and the death of innocence. But the leaves, they must fall from the trees. You cannot outrun it, or shelter from it. You can only bend with it, or snap and break under it’s weight. All horses must retire, and race horses they go to the knackers to be made into pet food, or to the glue factory. Their breeding is irrelevant.
In fact such ideas themselves hide a long history of genetic disorders within so called ‘pure breeds’, due entirely to their lack of genetic diversity and attempts to ‘purify’ and control traits.
‘https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/us/politics/trump-blood-comments.html
“Thousands of microscopic organisms share our bodies, influencing our behaviour in ways stranger than you could imagine. Your body is crawling with bacteria and fungi.”
The human body contains trillions of microorganisms — outnumbering human cells by 10 to 1. Therefor you cannot remain afraid of the dirt under your feet. You breath it. As you are it and it is you.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/human-microbiome
“this plethora of microbes contribute more genes responsible for human survival than humans contribute”
‘https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-human-microbiome-project-defines-normal-bacterial-makeup-body
“The Giuliani case was about more than defamation. It was about power.”
Giuliani urged Trump to push fraud claims on election night. He claimed that they wheeled suitcases of illegal ballots out from under tables after counting had concluded at State Farm Arena, that they were passing around USB drives and that they created a fake water main break. He alone is entirely responsible for his own fate.
“At issue in the case wasn’t really the fact that Giuliani lied, but whom he lied about. It was a case about the way powerful people can use their influence to destroy the reputations of the average person.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/17/rudy-giuliani-verdict-defamation-reputations
ResearcherZero • December 23, 2023 2:39 AM
@Clive @ALL
You put the sim card in a phone in your pocket, so in an emergency you can be found.
Most can’t afford good OpSec, and neither are they afforded it. The private tennis club or golf club is a decidedly white experience, with a similarly terrible dress code. Except for that one time someone torched one of our local private clubs to the ground out of spite.
The fire though disappointing, did not really matter because it was one of many and $.
It is our land. We own (most of) it, and we stole from someone else before you. Or we purchased it from someone who stole it from someone else, as we were here first (sort of).
Structural privilege is considered the “norm,” and people and belief systems that fall outside that norm are essentially considered outsiders or not “fully [insert country].”
“Privilege, simply put, is societally granted, unearned advantages accorded to some people and not others.” (Our many private clubs for example.)
‘https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching/wp-content/uploads/sites/853/2021/08/An-Instructors-Guide-to-Understanding-Privilege-Draft.pdf
[A] debtor is responsible for a ‘willful’ injury when he or she commits an intentional act the purpose of which is to cause injury or which is substantially certain to cause injury.”
“Malicious” is defined as “wrongful and without just cause or excessive even in the absence of personal hatred, spite or ill-will.” In re Walker, 48 F.3d 1161 (11th Cir. 1995). To establish malice, “a showing of specific intent to harm another is not necessary.” In re Ikner, 883 F.2d. 986 (11th Cir 1989).
11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6). does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt—
for willful and malicious injury by the debtor to another entity
‘https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/523
(this is the law as written, not legal advice)
Jonathan Wilson • December 23, 2023 3:17 AM
Australia introduced mandatory ID checks for purchasing a SIM card at some point. I believe there was a criminal case going on (terrorist maybe) that caused the government to tighten the rules but I can’t find anything about the details at this point.
ResearcherZero • December 23, 2023 3:23 AM
If you own a lot of stuff, accordingly you need more privacy and tax cuts.
Australia’s richest 1% pocketed [only] $150,000 a minute over past decade.
Former PM Scott Morrison said it best when he was the treasurer:
“There is a new divide — the taxed and the taxed-nots.”
“”On current settings, more Australians today are likely to go through their entire lives without ever paying tax than for generations and more Australians are likely today to be net beneficiaries of the Government than contributors — never paying more tax than they receive in government payments.” ~ ScoMo (just a common bloke)
–
However good leaders resist their own tendency to exercise power.
“My father has been dead for five years so we were understandably shocked and upset,” she said.
The legislation doesn’t currently consider whether you will be put in a position of financial vulnerability.
‘https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/20/robotax-ato-robodebt-letters-on-hold-tax-debt-retiree
ResearcherZero • December 23, 2023 3:26 AM
“Merry Christmas”
Most of the debts sent to readers predate the five-year retention period most taxpayers are required to keep records.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/02/not-just-a-strange-glitch-australians-left-to-grapple-with-claim-they-owe-tax-from-2008-and-beyond
ResearcherZero • December 23, 2023 4:07 AM
@Jonathan Wilson
Normally intelligence agencies look into those kind of things, but they do have different investigatory powers in Australia. They need a warrant, the conditions are strict compared with police, and they have no powers of arrest. Passing on details to police, governed by secrecy laws can be complicated at times. Some existing evidence of a crime needs to be provided, or at least the intention to commit one needs to be provided.
So being able to intercept communications does help. Beyond that I could not say.
–
“The normalization of this type of violent rhetoric — and lack of remedial action by social media entities — is cause for significant concern.”
‘https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/dec/17/court-watchers-cite-political-rhetoric-for-increas/
The vast majority of the culprits – more than 90% – are male.
‘https://advocatechannel.com/election-officials-violent-threats-democracy
The timing, he says, couldn’t be worse.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4343187-fbi-chief-were-working-around-the-clock-to-disrupt-potential-attacks-inspired-by-hamas/
ResearcherZero • December 23, 2023 4:22 AM
@Jonathan Wilson
While intelligence agencies and other departments are experiencing a huge increase in workload. In the U.S. at least, many are facing attempts from Congress to wind back their powers. The best way to do it would be to improve targeted collection, but maybe they don’t want to explain the details of how the various collection systems work.
Although explaining technical details to the bunch in the political theatre is no cake walk. I doubt many of them could follow the flow charts, let alone pay attention long enough to look at them. And maybe some just don’t care.
The term ‘cluster-f–k’ springs to mind.
–
Hamas leaders say that their goal was to trigger this very response and that they’re still hoping for a bigger war.
‘https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/hamas-leaders-sinwar-israel-gaza.html
“Bogdanov’s role in the link between Russia-Hamas is central. He has been in charge of the relationship on a day-to-day basis for many years, regularly meeting its leaders in Moscow and Qatar. Bogdanov has also been entrusted by Putin to undertake sensitive diplomatic missions with China, among other major actors, to support Russia’s Mideast policies.”
They also include senior members of Hamas’ military leadership, such as Husam Badran and Saleh al-Arouri. Badran formerly led Hamas’ military wing in the West Bank, where he planned suicide bombings during the Second Intifada, including the infamous 2001 Dolphinarium discotheque massacre in Tel Aviv, which killed 21 young Israelis. Al-Arouri, characterized by the Israeli government’s public intelligence center as number two in Hamas overall, founded its military wing and directs the group’s military and terrorist activities. He also notably has close, long-standing ties with Iran.
Mr. Bogdanov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, met with Hamas leadership again this week. Putin was thanked again by Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks.
https://www.mei.edu/publications/essential-questions-about-russia-hamas-link-evidence-and-its-implications
On Thursday, Russia’s deputy foreign minister met with Hamas leaders. Since October 7, Moscow has clearly adopted an anti-Israel stance in the hope of weakening the West’s support of Ukraine.
Bogdanov had also received the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani on the same day, according to Russian diplomacy.
‘https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/10/27/on-moscow-visit-hamas-leaders-rule-out-release-of-hostages-without-a-ceasefire_6207892_4.html
ResearcherZero • December 23, 2023 4:29 AM
There are multiple new Russian, Iranian and Chinese campaigns to collect intel also taking place.
JonKnowsNothing • December 23, 2023 10:27 AM
@ResearcherZero, All
re: ROBOTAX the five-year retention period most taxpayers are required to keep records.
In the USA, there is the fine print that most people never get to, I’m pretty sure the same is true in other countries.
There is no limitation, if there are any questions, issues, concerns, legal alterations in laws, criminal activities etc about the taxes owed.
The minimum is technically designed so that you have zero proofs about what you claimed on the forms, or what your CPA-Tax Preparer put down. CPA-Tax Preparers only put down what you tell them, although in the USA, you must now provide digital images of all related documentation.
The Windrush folks found out about this when Teresa May, as Home Secretary, shredded all their historical proofs of UK citizenship going back more than 30years. Those proofs where held by the UK Gov, primarily ships manifests detailing date of arrival (search Windrush Generation), which they shredded on her orders.
POOF go the PROOFS
RL anecdote tl;dr
There is a 2x or 3x public event that allows people to bring N boxes of paper work for shredding at no cost. It’s a popular event and people line up in their cars for the drive through.
The payment is that all the LEAs and 3Ls sit in a large command center van, with all their surveillance kit checking everyone in the line: LPRs, FaceID, etc. They get to play with all the toys in the box.
What you also lose is the required documentation should SHYTE happen: urban fire, flood, tornadoes (yes in California), not to mention other proofs you might need to present to get a drivers license, proof of an ADDRESS (which homeless do not have) and other sundry items you may need.
JonKnowsNothing • December 23, 2023 10:48 AM
@Clive, @ResearcherZero, All
re: ROBOVETDEBT clawbacks from 90yo military veterans
Another item in The Computer Made Us Do it. This version chasing legitimate military veterans over 90yo for “over payment” of their military pensions, and claiming claw backs
after
So… they are saying that someone got out pen and paper and doodled an answer? More likely they have a SS with internal calculations in hidden columns to manipulate the data.
I once had the unexpected not-pleasure of seeing such a SS in landscape 8pt filled with columns detailing why I was overpaid sick pay and demanding a claw back from a US Company Provided Health Care Benefit company. Lots of columns. No Formulas. Hard copy.
So, again the rhetorical question:
Oh, righto. It’s an outsourced contract company with the poorest paid computer programmers, who get paid by the number of lines of code they can write in an hour. No need to ask any questions.
===
ht tp s://www.theguardian. com/australia-news/2023/dec/23/australias-veterans-department-apologises-for-any-distress-in-chasing-alleged-pension-overpayments
JonKnowsNothing • December 23, 2023 11:23 AM
@Clive, All
re: Panfamine: UK Cheeses in Canada (1)
There are a lot of crop failures, animal culls, wars and other reasons why some items are in short supply or no supply. This variation is a trade tariff (taxation) issue between UK and Canada.
Aside, from the economic issues and taxation rates, an interesting item was
While these are specialty cheeses, there is only a 6 months supply in Canada, held by individual resellers.
In the USA, our farm policy includes Dairy Support funds, where the US Gov buys the oversupply of milk, cheese, casein, butter to maintain a high retail market price. In theory the funds pay the Dairy Farmers to keep working, in reality it doesn’t work like that but it sounds good in election speeches.
Those items were never to be released into the consumer food chain because the whole purpose was to keep prices artificially high. Periodic changes in the laws, now allow some of these types of government stock piled products to be released through government channels to county food bank coordinators and on to the various food bank distribution organizations to people standing in line for a brick (500g) of cheese. (2)
===
1)
ht tps://www.theguardian. com /politics/2023/dec/23/hard-cheese-canada-rejects-british-attempt-to-secure-tariff-free-exports
BREXIT Failure
245% duty
£50 cost to every kilogram of UK cheese
2)
note: An earlier version of USGov Food Stockpile Distribution
h ttps://www.history.c o m/news/government-cheese-dairy-farmers-reagan
JonKnowsNothing • December 23, 2023 11:53 AM
@Clive, @SpaceLifeForm, All
re: JN.1 COVID global outbreak
MSM report on CDC released information about JN.1 in USA & California
Kaiser Lab COVID Test location is inside their clinic and hospital. You have to walk through the complex, past all the people standing in line for medications at the pharmacy, past all the open bullpens of people waiting for MD appoints, queue inside the close-room Lab area, use a designated but common to all COVID testers restroom for self swabbing and leaving the swap in the lab kiosk.
===
ht tps://www.latimes. c o m /california/story/2023-12-23/why-the-new-coronavirus-strain-jn-1-may-be-behind-californias-covid-uptick
lurker • December 23, 2023 12:55 PM
@JonKnowsNothing
JN1 currently ~15% of cases here but increasing ~15%/mth. Testing and reporting now voluntary, so wastewater checks are the only reliable indicator, plus the rapid decline in stocks of Paxlovid. Govt urging booster shots, but current vax design is at least 15 mths old. Only Pfz is availablbe through public program, and the “latest” version valid against XBB1.5 will be available next (sth) winter.
‘https://www.rnz.co.nz/tags/covid-19
AL • December 23, 2023 1:17 PM
@JonKnowsNothing
CDC is reporting the level of Covid-19 in California as “low”.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#maps_new-admissions-rate-state
The map shows that 2924 number of hospital admissions for California, so it seems to be displaying the same situation that your post is talking about.
AL • December 23, 2023 1:49 PM
In the area of AI, I just became aware that AI can run on a PC without any cloud.
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/11/introducing-llamafile/
I’m running it now in a sandbox and it’s working just ducky, considering we’re in the top of the 1st inning on this. That said, there is a VirusTotal report that isn’t entirely clean.
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/af25718508cbc6af659366058abb9c106bbdac8220babd8a2e2176b07cfd2544
I don’t run the all-in-one file, I run llamafile.exe and a LLM. My batch file looks like this:
start "LLAMA" /D . llamafile.exe -m mistral-7b-instruct-v0.2.Q5_K_M.gguf -c 2048 -ngl 24 -t 8 --host 127.0.0.1 --nobrowser --no-mmap
Once started, I can access the AI at http://localhost:8080/
Still playing around with it, but it’s quite an eyeopener. I have a 16GB memory box. There are other alternatives to llamafile that I haven’t checked out.
The big takeaway I see is, a user can make inquiries without a cloud provider building a dossier on that user. Right now, I’ve downloaded 6 LLMs. Makes me want to go out and get a 64GB box, or larger so I can load up a larger LLM. But, there is a lot of information in the 7b LLMs that run about 5GB, and I can see these LLMs becoming specialized.
Got a medical question, fire up the medical LLM. Need to code, fire up the coding LLM. Right now, these LLMs seem to be all-in-one affairs. But, the cat is out of the bag. The horse has bolted from the barn. 😊
Justhanging • December 23, 2023 5:49 PM
Talking about sim cards, this is some scary stuff.
With $20 of Gear from Amazon, Nearly Anyone Can Make This IMSI-Catcher in 30 Minutes
Surveillance takes on different character when it trickles down to more ordinary, everyday users. The significance and threat from IMSI-catchers is multiplied when a lot more people can deploy one using cheap tech from Amazon and free code from Github.
With some dirt cheap tech I bought from Amazon and 30-minutes of set-up time, I was streaming sensitive information from phones all around me. IMSIs, the unique identifier given to each SIM card, can be used to confirm whether someone is in a particular area. They can also be used as part of another attack to take over a person’s phone number and redirect their text messages. Obtaining this information was incredibly easy, even for a non-expert.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/gy7qm9/how-i-made-imsi-catcher-cheap-amazon-github
pup vas • December 23, 2023 6:01 PM
How to embrace uncertainty
https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-face-uncertain-situations-and-embrace-opportunity
=Key points – How to embrace uncertainty
Uncertain situations are inevitable. From waiting for a call back to anticipating important test results, everyone faces situations with uncertain outcomes. Not knowing what will happen can be challenging.
Uncertainty doesn’t have to be so daunting. Many people worry intensely about or try to escape uncertain situations. But developing a more optimistic outlook and learning to tolerate uncertainty can make these situations easier to face.
Be your own defense attorney. Reflecting on past failures or disappointments, identify reasons for each outcome that were unique to that situation – rather than reflecting a permanent problem.
Develop a ‘can do’ attitude. Think of situations with uncertain outcomes as challenges to be met – and list specific ways to overcome the difficulties they pose.
Devise alternatives. Reduce your emotional dependence on the outcomes of uncertain situations by listing alternative courses of action that you can take if the worst were to happen.
Practice mindfulness. Take some time to simply observe the thoughts and feelings that an uncertain situation brings up. Cultivate a more relaxed state of mind with regular mindfulness meditation.=
Clive Robinson • December 24, 2023 2:03 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing, ALL,
Re : Panfamine: UK Cheeses in Canada
Ever thought to ask why UK and European cheeses sell so well in North America?
It’s not just because it tastes better or offers more variety.
The reason it is the same as “US Chlorinated and hormone riddled Chicken” and other known to be decidedly questionable if not dangerous North American industrial produced food stuffs.
Given a fair choice many people in North America would not eat North American food stuffs. You only have to look at the US Baby Milk Formular disaster and deaths to see why even before that US mothers were importing unlawfully via Canafa European formular.
The EU that the UK was part of, had very good science based reasons to say no to the import of certain North American food stuffs into the EU for very good “Health and Safety” reasons of the 600-700million and climbing EU cirizens.
In the case of Canada just one is decidedly dodgy beef products ramed full of decidely not nice chemical hormones that have rightfully been baned (see what happened in Mexico a decade or so back with chickens pumped full of similar hormones got sold to the public to understand why).
But worse still is “Canadian Mad Cow” that a year and a half ago caused China who was then the largest importer of Canadian Beef to have an outright ban on it, that they still have in place because the Canadian Government under preasure from the North American beef lobby have not made even minimal steps to prevent it happening again, as well as tightening up the lax import and re-export regulation for equally as suspect or worse beef from south of the Canadian boarder.
So put simply Canadian beef has two “not safe for human consumption” strikes against it (which even Canadians are well aware of so even they don’t buy when their is a fair choice alternative). So North American beef is not exactly selling and even the industrial producers are feeling the pain. But the North American Beef lobby rather than blaiming it’s self and the cheap and dangerous farming practices of it’s members has instead put preasure on the ever weak and compliant Canadian Government…
They beef lobby think if they can force the UK to take the Bad Canadian beef that will open up a crack by which other North American “bad foods” can be pushed through including what some call the “Franken-Monster” products that Monsanto and similar push and are again baned for very good “Health and Safety” reasons.
So the UK with only 60-70 million citizens is being seen as “an easy target” to abuse by the North American industrial and dangerous food lobbies. Thus in turn the ever compliant Canadian Government is being pushed by the usuall questionable incentives inro basically saying,
“Do as the North American dangerous food lobbies demand to get them off our back, and their incentives back in our pockets.”
The thing is this was totally predictable consequence of the UK leaving Europe, I even mentioned this as a basic issue prior to the vote.
But as the current UK political incumbents lied to the UK public in oh so many prosecutable ways to get a “Yes Vote” they are not going to start telling the truth now about why this is happening.
My advice to the UK Government would be,
“Tell the truth to the UK public, and tell the North American industrial dangerous food lobby to shove it’s products up their own orifices till it makes their eyes bleed”.
Because if they don’t this nonsense will just keep happening.
As both you and @Winter know there is a quite large difference in the expected age you are going to die on average. With more than a decade longer in Canada and even longer in Europe. Perhaps people should ask why, especially as the US figures when broken down by socioeconomic groups shows even greater disparity…
The saying,
“You are what you eat”
Has more than a cursory effect in this disparity.
Clive Robinson • December 24, 2023 3:29 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing,
Re : Mutation to new hosts species.
With regards,
“It does not cause disease in humans”
I’ll give the same rider I gave back at the start of C19 and the likely hood of “disease reservoirs” in other species. In short,
“Yet, but given time…”
C19 jumped to all sorts of species and back again. It’s suspected that the Omacron varient juped to mice and back in Africa, and thankfully it was both less human harmful and more infectious, thus displacing orher variants.
There is however no reason that further mutations should keep heading in the “less human harmful”.
Which I guess brings us back to JN.1 and the currently limited availability of evidence about it, but… which does suggest by increases in hospitalisations and potentially deaths there may be issues.
Oh and apparently from various sources only the new Moderna vaccine has effectiveness to JN.1, though the earlier vaccines are still been pushed as boosters…
ResearcherZero • December 24, 2023 4:42 AM
Flawed accounting practices used to attribute debts to children.
‘https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/23/business/social-security-overpayment-debt.html
The Australian example of Robodebt, and the Dutch and French fraud detection systems are examples which compare two different data sets by a means which is incomparable, or use of a flawed and discriminatory scoring set to ‘rate’ people with a risk score. Misuse of such power is not confined to the politics of Thatcher, it has occurred within many political settings lacking oversight, scrutiny or integrity.
There is still clearly a misunderstanding between misuse of technology, specific types of technology, and a conflations between them. (the below article for example)
‘https://danmcquillan.org/ai_thatcherism.html
…Some of these systems do use algorithms, but they are not “intelligent” systems. They began with spread sheets. They also do not employ Machine Learning or LLMs.
Centrelink payments are made fortnightly, and the idea was to impute a notional fortnightly income based on the average of a recipient’s yearly income.
“It’s completely inaccurate to assume that income over the course of a financial year can be averaged to produce an accurate figure for the actual patterns of people’s earnings.”
https://theconversation.com/why-robodebts-use-of-income-averaging-lacked-basic-common-sense-201296
Another example of a flawed implementation of technology used to rate people with a risk score based on inappropriate and inaccurate data comparison by discriminatory means…
“a small experiment at a local CNAF in Bordeaux went national amidst a growing moral-panic over welfare fraud”
https://www.lighthousereports.com/methodology/how-we-investigated-frances-mass-profiling-machine/
Dutch citizens are not automatically warned if they are flagged for fraud risk by SyRI, and they cannot access the reasons why they have been flagged…
The court stated “the SyRI legislation in no way provides information on … which objective factual data can justifiably lead to the conclusion that there is an increased risk.”
Moreover, the court noted there was a risk SyRI was biased against people in lower-income neighborhoods.
‘https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13882627211031257
Or more simply put, it can be described as poor governance, misuse of official power, and the targeting of vulnerable groups to deploy deeply flawed policy.
ResearcherZero • December 24, 2023 5:04 AM
When the Rotterdam system was deployed, Accenture hailed its “sophisticated data-driven approach” as an example to other cities.
https://www.wired.com/story/welfare-state-algorithms/
The Special Rapporteur concluded that states should search for technologies that improve welfare instead of technologies that aim to detect fraud.
He stated that significant changes should be made to avoid — “stumbling, zombie-like, into a digital welfare dystopia. Such a future would be one in which unrestricted data-matching is used to expose and punish the slightest irregularities in the record of welfare beneficiaries.”
‘https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/41/39/Add.1
Low-income families were falsely accused of fraud by the Dutch tax authorities as a result, with people from ethnic minorities disproportionately impacted. While the scandal brought down the Dutch government in January 2021, sufficient lessons have not been learnt despite multiple investigations.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/10/xenophobic-machines-dutch-child-benefit-scandal/
In the case of Platform Bescherming Burgerrechten versus the Dutch State, the latter gave some examples of “discrepancies” that could lead to a risk indication. One of these discrepancies is a low usage of running water.
‘https://algorithmwatch.org/en/syri-netherlands-algorithm/
Winter • December 24, 2023 5:27 AM
@ResearcherZero
When the Rotterdam system was deployed, Accenture hailed its “sophisticated data-driven approach” as an example to other cities.
It was one of the biggest post-war scandals in the Netherlands. The costs for compensation and reparations are estimated to be over 7 billion euros. Reparations are a mess as the tax authorities are not well enough equipped to handle the tens of thousands of cases.
This scandal was one reason the Christian democrat party was wiped out in the last election and the other coalition parties decimated.
Clive Robinson • December 24, 2023 7:19 AM
@ Winter,
Re : Headless chickens still flap.
“This scandal was one reason the Christian democrat party was wiped out in the last election and the other coalition parties decimated.”
The question is though, “What came next?
And of course, “Is it any better?”
The thing is the actual people who should be rounded up and chained to the wall for public ire to be vented at is those who knowingly lied to defraud the Government and citizens.
That is those who sold the idea, built the defective system and tried to keep it hiden whilst they made what they knew was their unlawful gains their partners and shareholders were told was profit etc.
Remember we know that,
“Accenture by any other name was and is still an offending tas de merde profonde.”
ResearcherZero • December 24, 2023 7:44 AM
“By law, agencies are required to get public input before they issue any regulations. But too often, public input takes the form of a comment process that is theoretically open to all but, in practice, advantages larger and well-resourced entities that can monitor government websites for rules, understand the bureaucratic language, and respond during the limited window for comment.”
https://www.clasp.org/blog/demystifying-the-rulemaking-process-to-increase-public-engagement/
–
Curb cuts in the sidewalk—originally designed for the mobility-impaired and those with strollers or wheelchairs — turn out to be better for all of us, for safety and other reasons.
Linking policy analysis and design on one hand and implementation on the other — is long overdue, as leading researchers and advocates for more effective government have argued.
“Universal design is an approach, born in the design of products and the physical environment, that emphasizes accessibility to all. It reflects both an ethos and a lens, and it is not uncommon for designers using that approach to find that solutions built to remove barriers for those with special needs actually work better for everyone else too.”
Part of that is routinely analyzing delivery systems and where they fall short, and how innovative approaches might better serve the least well served, whether they are people of color, single parents, low-income people, rural residents, or all of the above.
‘https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-we-can-learn-from-the-effort-to-implement-bidens-executive-orders-on-advancing-equity/
“parties are more responsive at the agenda-setting stage than at the decision-making stage, and that responsiveness tends to be mediated by the type of promise”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01925121231155140
When policy is included in conceptual work, it is often identified as a contextual variable rather than being central to the implementation concept itself. It is also often presented as a broad category of “policy”, rather than as a variable that is specific and therefore measurable in empirical work.
‘https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7885555/
–
“One of the most ancient ideas in Western thought is that rational deliberation will produce better societies.”
Our desire for rational, dispassionate deliberation, as well as our ability to empathize, is limited and shaped by our political identities.
‘https://trinity.duke.edu/news/how-did-political-polarization-begin-and-where-does-it-end
Most partisans hold major misbeliefs about the other party’s preferences that lead them to think there is far less shared policy belief. This perception gap is highest among progressive activists, followed closely by extreme conservatives: in other words, the people who are most involved in civic and political life hold the least accurate views of the other side’s beliefs.
ResearcherZero • December 24, 2023 7:51 AM
If it wasn’t an accurate reflection you could almost laugh…
“This 118th Congress, with a mere 22 bills signed into law, is currently the least productive session witnessed in decades.”
‘https://www.wired.com/story/us-congress-children-privacy-reform-2023/
Winter • December 24, 2023 7:58 AM
@Clive
The question is though, “What came next?
A “farmers party” and a more centrist copy of the original. The former is anti-nature (would prefer to plow all nature reserves). The latter is populated by those who stood up against the evil scandal.
And of course, “Is it any better?”
The jury is still out.
But the main culprit, the neo-cons, who drove the whole disaster with their policy of criminalization of welfare recipients, lost about a third of their voters to a far right anti-immigration party. Which is much worse in every single respect.
Formation of a new coalition government is an “interesting” problem. The coalition would involve at least 4 parties that trust each other like the Scorpion and the Frog.[1]
[1] ‘https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
Mr. Peed Off • December 24, 2023 2:27 PM
@ vas pup
Israel’s StemRad inks $4.5m contract to shield US troops from gamma radiation
It’s a scam. If it was possible to build a radiation suit that offered significant protection while allowing the wearer to get work done in a timely matter, the protective wear would have been available long ago. I am a retired nuclear power maintenance worker.
Anymouse • December 24, 2023 4:49 PM
Why is there a cover-up by the intelligence agencies concerning Havana Syndrome when in fact, they exactly know what is causing it, how it is used and the effects it has on individuals. The FBI knows as I reported it to them. Defense contractor is using it to spy on American Citizens. Is he a rogue individual? Stay tune. Hmmm
ResearcherZero • December 24, 2023 10:31 PM
It might look bad if employees were not informed that there is a small chance they might be exposed to intensive surveillance with a system that may have damaging results.
It is not a defense contractor using it to spy on American Citizens. It is Russian Intelligence Services spying on people in many different locations around the world, often sensitive locations. The average person is not much interest to RIS, but there have been family members and others caught up in surveillance operations.
No one wants to admit though that they have been aware of the situation for the last 35 years. And it’s classified. Liability and privacy risk are used as excuses to not act – all the time. Along with not acknowledging that something happened.
Not acknowledging to employs that there may be a risk to them at work has a long history.
Often both government and non-governmental organisations are worried more about ‘bad optics’ than bad outcomes. And this is one of those situations.
Why do you think it’s labelled Havana ‘Syndrome’? It did not even first occur in Cuba, it began long before then, and most incidents involve diplomatic and intelligence staff, who just happened to be under surveillance from Russian Intelligence. GRU specifically.
–
Clipper, ITAR, and multi-year legal bills brought about by a group of bureaucrats.
‘https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2023-57054-a_brief_history_of_the_90_s_crypto_wars
ResearcherZero • December 24, 2023 10:56 PM
@Anymouse
Just like the victims of automated ‘debt recovery’ schemes, those affected were forgotten.
They are the casualties of grey zone warfare. Which does look more than a little reckless, and very careless. Each and everyone who got hit is an inconvenient reminder of failures to look after our own people. It happens often in the defense/intelligence/security theatre. Discarding people who were/are being targeted by a hostile foreign government. Burned.
ResearcherZero • December 25, 2023 1:01 AM
There were people who did try and help. Officially termed “overstepping your authority.”
Like using may and perhaps where you do not need to, or vague references.
The Australians may not be letting on everything they know. Perhaps because some of those targeted were involved in counter-espionage and counter-intelligence investigations.
‘https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/politics/cia-investigation-havana-syndrome-mysterious-illness/index.html
The CIA agents – who included one of the organisation’s five top-ranking officials – had visited Australia last year (2019) for meetings with Australian officials.
(Another spate of incidents occurred on the other side of the country, some decades before the incident in 2019.) A vague and unhelpful reference to that specific period in time.
Analysis of mobile phone data placed Russian agents close the hotel where the CIA agents were staying. “The Americans probably know more about it than they are letting on.”
“For this to be plausible, they are now talking about a technology that is highly pinpoint so you can hit a bedroom or hotel room, and is highly mobile.”
https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks
“Proxies and agents were recruited as part of a wider network. Among other malicious activities, they wanted to steal sensitive information.”
The spy ring comprised purported embassy and consular staff as well as other operatives using deep-cover identities. Perhaps something like this happened previously.
‘https://www.smh.com.au/national/fake-russian-diplomats-revealed-as-heart-of-hive-spy-ring-in-australia-20230223-p5cmxz.html
There are things that may not make it into local newspapers (brown underpants), but it may lead to other things closing.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/terminated-how-russias-plan-for-a-new-embassy-in-canberra-was-crushed/psqesdapb
Once it was fun to worry
About who was in control
Could look into the future
But now thing’s don’t seem right
Passion is filling the air
Profits are better than life
And things are harder to bear
Things are harder to bear
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgw977T_CCs
ResearcherZero • December 25, 2023 3:42 PM
@Anymouse
There were however a small number of civilians who were directly targeted. If there were more people affected, or a contractor involved then there would be an inquiry.
That is the unfortunate way that things work. A small number of people do not poll well enough. Like murder, apart from those affected, no one really cares if it just a dozen or so. The issue does not have a personal effect on politicians, and they want it to stay that way. When the issue first came up, first they laughed, followed later there after by the sound of political buttocks farting butterflies filling the skiff.
Back in those days no one was allowed to take notes in the skiff either and the air conditioner never worked, so it smelled pretty bad. It’s likely that it still does.
However, that small number of people affected do not have a personal security team.
–
“There is still a notable lack of global framework for regulating the use of targeted digital surveillance technologies.” (and surveillance hardware)
ISPs/telcos are allowed to collect and sell your information under various provisions, along with your location. Your rights come down to the rulings of courts on this issues.
‘https://www.accessnow.org/spyware-attack-in-serbia/
How can you limit your exposure to data retention? Data retention laws, the courts and what you can do about it. (~80 minutes)
https://media.ccc.de/v/rc3-2021-cwtv-879-stop-general-data-rete
Intellexa and NSO Group
Let’s cut to the chase… How can you defend yourself and what are the pros and cons of those options?
Sep 30, 2023 – Defence from surveillance tools, what’s next? (~60 minutes)
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZZbh67c6qc&t=249
–
Deep Packet Inspection
Middlebox systems are commonly used by nation-states to enforce censorship laws or by corporate enterprise content filtering policies.
Sandvine’s PacketLogic middleboxes can prioritize, degrade, block, inject and log various types of internet traffic on mobile and fixed networks. Sandvine PacketLogic devices were being used to block political, journalistic and human rights content. The company is owned by private equity firm Francisco Partners, which also has a stake in the NSO Group.
A middlebox can also be used to redirect traffic for example by modifying the packets routing header fields such as the IP addresses. To abuse these boxes for distributed reflective denial of service (DRDoS) attacks, an attacker spoofs source IPs of the intended victim, resulting in response traffic directed at the victim from the middleboxes.
Abusing SYN, ACK PSH+ACK, and RST packets: These attacks can produce far more amplification than are seen in existing TCP and UDP-based attacks.
Animation demonstrating the sequence…
‘https://geneva.cs.umd.edu/posts/usenix21-weaponizing-censors/
vas pup • December 25, 2023 5:12 PM
Red Sea cargo ship hijack: How to keep merchant vessels safe from attack
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231215-red-sea-cargo-ship-hijack-how-to-keep-merchant-vessels-safe-from-attack
“People have long puzzled over how to secure merchant vessels against threats of violence – especially more common forms of attack, in which assailants use a
small boat or boats to approach commercial ships rather than helicopters.
Somali pirates became notorious for doing this in the early 2000s and a wide range of lethal and non-lethal weapons systems were deployed against them. What
happened to all those gadgets? And are they of any use today, to ships sailing
the world’s most dangerous seas?
!!!”It’s a multi-pitched, very high frequency tone. Very loud,” says Richard
Danforth, chief executive of Genasys, a US-based tech company. “It’ll make you
want to cover your ears.”
He is describing the capabilities of his firm’s long range acoustic devices, known as LRADs, which Genasys – formerly the American Technology Corporation –
introduced in the early 2000s. Danforth says the idea of an LRAD is to either
allow for long-range communication of verbal warnings to suspects, or for
broadcasting an unpleasant, disorienting tone at high volumes.
Genasys claims its models are now capable of projecting sound up to 3,000m
(9,843ft) while automatically tracking the target.
The company claims that their system can work even if assailants wear ear
protection. “Because much of human hearing is processed from the vibration of the small bones in your face and jaw, earplugs or headphones do little to reduce LRAD’s effects,” a spokesman says.
!!!Danforth adds that some large commercial vessels, including container ships, are currently sailing with LRAD systems installed. Some of these are set up so that crew members can remotely control them from the bridge – to aim them, for instance, at a boatload of incoming pirates.
=>LRADs are also used by the US Navy, some nuclear power plants, wealthy yacht owners and one system is even in place at the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, according to Danforth.
The sonic weapon is also not undestructible. “We have had LRADs shot before,” says Danforth, as he describes a case in which police used one of the devices to communicate with an armed suspect holed up in a building. “The assailant opened the door and shot the LRAD,” recalls Danforth. “It was no longer
functional after that.”
“Consider placing well-constructed dummies at strategic locations around the ship to give the impression of greater numbers of crew on watch,” the dossier suggests. There’s also mention of razor wire and various barrier systems to stop attackers climbing on board. One helpful note explains how you can prevent
explosive devices from damaging the bridge: “Chain link fencing can be used to
reduce the effects of an RPG (rocket propelled grenade).”
Another company, QinetiQ, helped to develop a special net that could be
launched from a helicopter at incoming attacking boats. In theory, the net
would wrap around the propeller and disable the craft. However, QinetiQ
confirmed to the BBC that the system is no longer available for merchant shipping.
!!!One of the, arguably, wackier ideas that surfaced at the height of the Somali piracy crisis was to spray attackers with unpleasant chemicals. Years
ago, Nease asked a company in the US to come up with such a substance. He says it would not have caused permanent injury but was “nasty” stuff that had a bright fluorescent yellow color.
“I’m going to tell you, if it gets on you, you’re done, you’re not shooting anybody,” he says. “It was better than pepper spray.”
When the threat goes beyond a small boatload of gun-toting pirates, it’s nearly impossible for a merchant ship to defend itself, says Jakob Larsen, head of
maritime safety and security at the ship owners’ association Bimco. Attacks by
highly capable military teams, missiles, and explosive-laden drones are too
sophisticated to brush off. You can’t put anti-aircraft or anti-missile systems on merchant vessels either, he stresses: “Weapons like that are simply not available to commercial shipping.”
vas pup • December 25, 2023 5:30 PM
@ALL – my opinion on https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/12/friday-squid-blogging-squid-parts-into-fertilizer.html/#comment-430276
I am totally for application of those non-lethal technologies that I marked by !!! on post (see above) for wide range security tasks on the ground as well: 1)border protection 2) mob attacking shops 3) illegally blocking traffic on highways 4)unauthorized mob activity regardless of political motivation.
Technologies do exist – political will of Governors first of all needed to apply them to improve security inside the country as well and prevent any illegal activity listed above and other.
That will save life of assailants and further escalation of confrontation with LEAs, save health and psycho of LEAs.
So actions is required not blah-blah-blah.
Clive Robinson • December 25, 2023 10:18 PM
@ vas pup, ALL,
Re : Non lethal weapons is a misnomer.
“I am totally for application of those non-lethal technologies”
I’m very much against them for various reasons escalation being one but more importantly the laws of physics tells you that to be effective where you want them to be they actually have to be lethal.
From the perspective of LRAD it is one of a number of radiant directed energy weapons and I worked on something similar back near a lifetime ago, and it could selectively kill pigs at over a quater of a mile (~1500ft / 450m).
Whilst LRAD will work against people with ear plugs in, a modified full face helmet similar to that worn by motorcycle riders will reduce it’s effectiveness significantly, and this is where the problems start.
Consider a hostage style situation where the captives are undefended, but the captors are defended. To be effective against the captors the power level will have to be raised between a thousand and a hundred thousand times. Now ask yourself what that means for the undefended captives… The term the MSM think the military uses is “Collateral Damage”, on the ground it’s not.
But the other problem is “P for plenty”… If you give someone a power control setting, they are going to tend towards setting it on the “P for plenty” side in an actual hostile situation. That is they will set things to give them the best chance to strike first.
The thing about radient systems is unlike kinetic systems the energy does not fall of with distance but the square of the distance. Which means there is a lot of energy “close in” thus above an acceptable harm level. Some here are aware of what a box corner or tri-corner reflector does. From a practical perspective it causes most of the energy to be “180’d” back to the source. Both flat and curved surfaces will likewise cause reflections some of which will go back to the source or to those who are using it defensively. Thus you have to consider the path length from source to target and from source to reflector and back to defender. Close in reflectors to the source can have unpleasent if not significantly harmful consequences for the defenders.
The recomendation is that the sources for radient energy weapons are mounted “in the clear”. Which makes them easily visable to attackers thus one of the most important battlefield advantages “concealment” is lost to the defenders.
Another problem is that the cross-sectional area of the source is necessarily large so that collimation of the radiated energy can to a certain extent be achieved[1]. Also the power density is low enough that it does not damage the emitter and focusing system.
But such systems also tend to be of low efficiency and fragile which goves rise to other issues such as usage cycle that can cause the broadly equivalent problem of a low rate of fire with kinetic weapons.
There are other issues with radiant energy weapons, limited range being one that is of considerable concern to defenders.
But all the issues of radient energy weapons are there along with others far worse in volumetric weapons.
It’s why the likes of projectile kinetic weapons are still favoured, but have their own issues such as surface area, wind resistance and gravity.
Anyone who has hit a Badminton shuttlecock is aware of the effects of “high aerodynamic drag”. But shuttlecocks are actually designed to be aerodynamically stable, when this is reduced the ability to control it’s flight becomes even more rapidly deminished than the range.
The problem with projectiles and their lethality is the initial impact cross section. To get aerodynamic stability you end up with a variation on a conically nosed projectile that has a very small initial cross section thus an increased harm probability on impact. It’s why the likes of “nets” or “webs” are often thought of, because they have a small aerodynamic surface but large target cross section.
Thus designing “effective” “nonlethal” weapons is not just hard, they almost always remain problematic in use due to having a very limited “nonlethal range” that could be as little as 1% of the actual range. Because the nonlethal range is effectively around a transition point from lethal to ineffective, that is based on a large number of unknowns about the targets defensive capabilities.
[1] A perfectly collimated beam, that is without divergence, so would not disperse with distance is highly desirable. Mathematically in simple theory such a beam is possible, however it cannot be created, due to the reality of refraction, scattering, and diffraction. Also there is the behaviours of an absorbent medium (that often are nonlinear). Which means that the properties of the medium change with time as the energy is absorbed.
vas pup • December 26, 2023 6:26 PM
@Clive – thank you very much for detailed explanation of LRAD weakness.
What about other option: “to spray attackers with unpleasant chemicals. Years
ago, Nease asked a company in the US to come up with such a substance. He says it would not have caused permanent injury but was “nasty” stuff that had a bright fluorescent yellow color.”?
Smell is directly going to the ancient brain bypassing any logical blocks. That means application will create very strong emotional link/ desire not show up in the same place again.
We do have our DOJ and DOD mutual programs on such type of nonlethal weapon but I don’t know any good application in particular hostage situation (bad example when Russia freed hostages from terrorists in Moscow theater with too many collaterals)and in MOUT like currently in Gaza when targets dispersed with civilians and /or used them as a shield.
JonKnowsNothing • December 26, 2023 7:28 PM
@vas pup, @Clive, All
re: nasty stuff that had a bright fluorescent yellow color.
Butyric Acid maybe? (1)
iirc(badly) Sea Shepard in their fight to save the Southern Arctic Whales from Japanese Whaling Fleet, used to lob packets of a smelly oily substance over the railings of the whaling boats.
Worked well until the Japanese showed up with their military navy and LRAD weapons pointed at the chopper and the folks in the dingy throwing the packets.
note: You need a “good arm” to toss a packet onto a moving ship from a bouncing dingy and get it over the railing without falling overboard into the freezing arctic oceans.
===
1)
ht tps://en.wikipedia .or g/wiki/Butyric_acid
Smells like rotten milk, oil gets everywhere and hard to cleanse, the yellow coloring is added afterward.
2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Shepard
ResearcherZero • December 26, 2023 11:54 PM
@vas pup
Chemicals are much the same. They are also affected by weather conditions like wind and rain. If someone is going to spray you with nerve agent then pick a rainy day and just happen to carry atropine, or steal some naloxone off a junkie. Though it will not work for all chemicals, so throw a hostage at them if they brought one along.
Preferably – don’t shoot the hostages. Try and disarm the hostiles with good sniper cover if you can get it.
Or you could do what sometimes happens at the intersection of departments and the political bureaucracy, just ignore the civilians entirely and pretend they do not exist. Find some mentally challenged loner and make up a completely unconnected story about any bodies. If anyone complains, a family member or friend perhaps, transfer them endlessly between departments, preferably state to state. Finally, hold an inquiry and find that the original complaint was not handled properly – as the one and only official response.
If any stories linger decades after the incident, label it with a f’ing stupid name.
ResearcherZero • December 27, 2023 12:10 AM
If there is a way to make a schedule or time-frame not fit within any normal weekly or calendar cycle, you can count on the government to find it. From the horses mouth:
*”The current leaders have expressed zero interest in reform – which means no interest in institutional well-being, maintenance, or renewal.”
Efforts at reform were dead in water by the early 1990s.
‘https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-broken-branch-how-congress-is-failing-america-and-how-to-get-it-back-on-track/
“Without the public’s trust, agencies face an uphill battle when it comes to fulfilling their missions.”
‘https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/why-government-decision-makers-cant-ignore-publics-trust
The need for a more effective interface between both departments, political bureaucracy, and the public… died, went bad, then stunk up the place. [flies]
ResearcherZero • December 27, 2023 12:36 AM
The only effective no lethal weapon – lawyers.
If there is a $10M bayonet attached at the end of it, then they sit up and take notice.
Clive Robinson • December 27, 2023 8:32 AM
@ vas pup, JonKnowsNothing, ResearcherZero, ALL,
Re : One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
“What about other option: “to spray attackers with unpleasant chemicals.”
Most chemicals that are unpleasant but supposadly harmless are mostly organics.
The problem is people have wildly varying sensitivities to organic chemicals.
We all know about “Peanut Allergies” that can kill some people[1] by anaphylaxis in a couple of minutes. Others have similar responses to the likes of plant and insect stings, whilst others would not even feel the sting.
It’s known that Russian Hostage Rescue when faced with a theater audiance that had been taken hostage in Moscow back in 2092 decided to use a heavier than air anesthetic gas. The results were not good with many of the hostages dying. It’s been said that quite a few ot the 120 were needless deaths because the gas used had an antidote injection that was not administered for various “administrative / jurisdictional” reasons.
The gas was based on a opiate called fentanyl which is fast-acting and regularly used in hospitals. A side effect is it suppresses the respiritory system. The emergency antidote for it is Naloxone available in two forms injectable and nasal spray. Due to the recreational use of other related chenicals most trained emergancy responders carry it.
[1] Depending on where you live the estimated number of people with peanut allergies is significant. The alargies range from mild dry mouth, cough upto full on anaphylaxis where risk of death is significant. It’s given in the West as high as 1:50 children and 1:200 have significant allergic reaction thus have to carry “Epi-pens”. Oddly though it can work the other way as in chocolate. Chocolate contains an alkaloid poison “theobromine” –meaning “Gods Food– that can kill you, but you would need to eat around 10kg or 20lb of milk chocolate or 1-2kg of dark 75% chocolate. Your pet dog however can die with less than 150mg per kg of body weight for a small dog. With a small dark chocolate “pocket bar” having about 200mg of theobromine per ounce (28.35g).
SpaceLifeForm • December 27, 2023 4:48 PM
#SiliconTurtles
Looks like a Supply Chain Attack, years in the making.
You have to make sure that the Photolithography goes according to plan.
‘https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/12/exploit-used-in-mass-iphone-infection-campaign-targeted-secret-hardware-feature/
Other questions remain unanswered, wrote Larin, even after about 12 months of intensive investigation. Besides how the attackers learned of the hardware feature, the researchers still don’t know what, precisely, its purpose is.
Clive Robinson • December 27, 2023 7:28 PM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
I hope you’ve been OK, you’ve been a bit quiet lately.
Hopefully you’ve not succumbed to a winter malady.
As for the “hardware fault”, I find the suspicious part of my thinking hinky wondering,
“fault or feature?”
And if the latter who is responsible for it…
I guess we are going to have to wait for more information to become public.
If it does not become public, then that may be quite a clue, if you follow the reasoning…
My start point would be the tie up between ARM and the UK GCHQ…
emily’s post • December 27, 2023 9:47 PM
@SpaceLifeForm
Re: photolithography
Shades or caustics of
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/demonically-clever-backdoor-hides-inside-computer-chip/
lurker • December 27, 2023 10:10 PM
@SpaceLifeForm, Clive Robinson
Apple are notorious for decades of undocumented (externally) hardware features. Did the intruders find this or were they told? Regardless, their entry method is rather yawn-inducing:
A “spare” register is too high a reward for this laziness. Why did those three vulnerabilities exist for so long? Fancy features before security yet again
Clive Robinson • December 27, 2023 10:22 PM
@ emily’s post, SpaceLifeForm, ALL,
Re : Circuits that are not.
“Shades or caustics of…”
You can find a way way earlier by a decade description of how to do this by @RobertT on this blog.
People tend to forget that capacitors and transmission lines are not components like transistors or resistors.
Thus they can be made by simply routing one metal layer on top of another, and a movment of charge in one will cause a movment of charge in the other.
This secondary movment of charge has the equivalent effect of applyimg a voltage on the secondary line.
If that line is connected to the gate circuit of a “Field Effect Transistor”(FET) then it will significantly effect the current flowing in the channel from drain to source.
If the FET has a sufficiently insulated gate, then even a miniscule movment of charge on the line will keep the FET drain current (Ids) in the altered state for seconds if not minutes, only requiring a small charge spike for 1/10,000th or less of the time.
Whilst it is not the mechanism used in DRAM the effect is broadly the same. That is a bit or control line is activated for a significant time.
Imagine if the control line went to say the fourth address input on what you think is only.a three bit address decoder? Instead of just eight addresses you could have upto an additional eight “secret” addresses that in turn give rise to other control state changes.
The hard trick is getting that movment of charge only when you want it but not at other times, without leaving obvious cells or tracking…
ResearcherZero • December 28, 2023 3:19 AM
Modern NICs allow BMCs in servers to share network ports with the host.
‘https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11781-adventures_in_reverse_engineering_broadcom_nic_firmware
–
When it comes to security, you do have to worry about how the sausage is made.
Processes reference Unix domain sockets as file system inodes, so two processes can communicate by opening the same socket.
Unix domain sockets may use the file system as their address name space. In addition to sending data, processes may send file descriptors across a Unix domain socket connection using the sendmsg() and recvmsg() system calls. This allows the sending processes to grant the receiving process access to a file descriptor for which the receiving process otherwise does not have access.
“SCM_CREDENTIALS and the abstract namespace were introduced with Linux 2.2 and should not be used in portable programs.”
In the Linux implementation, pathname sockets honor the permissions of the directory they are in. Creation of a new socket fails if the process does not have write and search (execute) permission on the directory in which the socket is created. On Linux, connecting to a stream socket object requires write permission on that socket; sending a datagram to a datagram socket likewise requires write permission on that socket.
POSIX does not make any statement about the effect of the permissions on a socket file, and on some systems (old BSD for example), the socket permissions are ignored. Portable programs should not rely on this feature for security.
‘https://dwheeler.com/secure-programs/Secure-Programs-HOWTO/sockets.html
–
Unix Domain Sockets Applied in Android Malware Should Not Be Ignored
‘https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/9/3/54
“Our notable findings include a permission bypass in highly privileged Qualcomm system daemons and an unprotected socket that allows an untrusted app to set the scheduling priority of other processes running on the system, despite the implementation of mandatory SELinux policies.”
All vendors except the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) have access control issues, allowing an untrusted app to communicate to highly privileged daemons through Unix domain sockets introduced by hardware manufacturer or vendor customization.
‘https://arxiv.org/pdf/2204.01516.pdf
When using strace, also record the output of lsof to see which files are accessed.
ResearcherZero • December 28, 2023 4:50 AM
‘stop warning your customers’
Indian government suggests spyware warnings should be sent to them instead.
‘https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/27/india-apple-iphone-hacking/
vas pup • December 28, 2023 3:31 PM
@Clive and @ResearcherZero – thank you for your input on nonlethal weapon.
Regarding weather affecting application: use kind of paintballs loaded with such substance on rioters providing precision shots on rioters leader first. Make large drones weaponized with such equipment. But for God sake do something or folks will take justice in their own hands. When LEAs silent vigilantes start flourish like you this statement or not.
There is no perfect solution to provide Law and Order versus Mob and Chaos. Nonlethal is substantially less evil.
JonKnowsNothing • December 28, 2023 4:56 PM
@vas pup, @Clive, @ResearcherZero, All
re: … use kind of paintballs loaded with such substance on rioters … Make large drones weaponized with such equipment.
These have existed for some years, maybe more than a decade. South African Police have such drones and use them.
There are multiple ammunition pods on each drone. One set has different colored paint pods- 3 or 4 different colors and types of indelible inks (cannot wash off or florescent). Another set has lethal ammunition. These can fire projectiles (lethal & non lethal) or tear gas. It has extensive video recording and transmission abilities. The unit is fairly large so the rotors and speed of the drone can be used to “buzz” a crowd or chase anyone running away. The size is ~24×24 and not light weight with all the ammo canisters, so if you get whomped by it you will get knocked down.
iirc(badly)(1) There was a miner’s(?) strike and the SoA Police came with full military gear and equipment. Including a war drone. Many were injured and some killed. It was one of the first times such a drone was photographed and made it to the news papers.
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1)
note: Whatever is going on with WikiP and DDG and Google Search it is Not Good. Few articles show up before 2020. The ones that do are highly sanitized. YMMV but it looks like the battery died.
Clive Robinson • December 28, 2023 5:18 PM
@ Bruce, ALL,
As I’ve mentioned a few times super-spy wanabe Corp Palantir has a very dubious reputation for it’s use of GIGO AI products.
The UK Government despite repeated warnings not to do so have given Palantir a massive but effectively pointless contract and given them not just every person in the UK’s confidential health records to Palantir, it’s also given Palantir the health records of many EU and other nations citizens who have been treated by the UK “National Health Service”(NHS) over the past few decades.
Other aspects of Palantir have surfaced more recently and are of such a shock that NHS healthcare workers have started taking direct action against Palantir,
vas pup • December 28, 2023 5:29 PM
@Clive and @JonKnowsNothing – thank you dear bloggers for your recent comments.
@Clive “Prior to 9/11 the New York cops had a very bad reputation for “shoot first don’t bother with questions later” and it was not just criminals getting shot but innocent bystanders. An enquiry was started but the “hero effect of 9/11” killed it politically.” That is because close proximity of police force and rioters create very intense emotional stress on LEOs when somebody spit on you, call you names, hit your hard first. LEOs are human beings and no training could prevent them to respond in the way that even override consideration of losing government pension is such situation. Versus LEO/operator of drone with multiple type of loads as @JonKnowsNothing provided information in South Africa in the excellent post on the subject could be far away and 100% when making decision on application and target selection. That exactly opposite of situation of application of deadly force when you don’t see victims of your actions. Here you do see rioters on your screen and provide them with taste of medicine they apply to innocent people.
If South Africa could do this why we can’t and let all violent mobs know who is the boss. Did you see recent movie Napoleon? There is very good example here how to treat mob. Unfortunately there were no nonlethal measures to restore order at that time (1795) and cannon balls made the bloody case.
JonKnowsNothing • December 31, 2023 10:07 AM
@Clive, @Winter, All
re: Death slogans
These are common in nearly every language and many go back centuries in origin. They are part of the propaganda systems of their days and if they are successful they carry forward war after war.
Like iconography there are people who study the meanings and origins. The intended population target generally could not read or write, so images are the ones that convey meaning.
Those placards over stores are not just the name of the store, they often carry a graphic image which for the non-readers is the name of the store. Even today, we can identify a company by their logo aka heraldry.
The history of heraldry beyond the arcana of how the image is constructed, is a big sign: Our Side Over Here. Battle flags, flags on uniforms: forward on the right, backward on the left to simulate the soldier carrying a physical banner into battle. Battalion flags, markings on equipment, machinery, tanks, air craft etc. are equivalent of Roman Eagles.
As to
There have been death shouts in every war and battle. Usually using the epithet of the day.
Recently though, some areas are beginning to “notice” that some names accepted for centuries or as slogans are “not so good”.
An example comes from the wars ~1100 when the Europe was fighting the Moors in Spain. Many towns and large cities carry this battle cry as their name.
Spain is filled with “Kill the [fill in the blank]” town names. Some towns have decided to return to much earlier names with less tension to them. Not everyone agrees that “Kill the [fill in the blank]” town names should be changed, since it gives some political parties a boost to their POV which they cannot otherwise say out loud.
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ht tps:// en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_James_Matamoros
ht tps:/ /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Clavijo
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
&ers • December 22, 2023 5:30 PM
@ALL
Common sense won.
hxxps://news.err.ee/1609202272/interior-abandons-plan-to-ban-non-personalized-prepaid-sim-cards
How is this at your side? Mandatory? Clive, SLF, etc?