Side Channels Are Common

Really interesting research: “Lend Me Your Ear: Passive Remote Physical Side Channels on PCs.”

Abstract:

We show that built-in sensors in commodity PCs, such as microphones, inadvertently capture electromagnetic side-channel leakage from ongoing computation. Moreover, this information is often conveyed by supposedly-benign channels such as audio recordings and common Voice-over-IP applications, even after lossy compression.

Thus, we show, it is possible to conduct physical side-channel attacks on computation by remote and purely passive analysis of commonly-shared channels. These attacks require neither physical proximity (which could be mitigated by distance and shielding), nor the ability to run code on the target or configure its hardware. Consequently, we argue, physical side channels on PCs can no longer be excluded from remote-attack threat models.

We analyze the computation-dependent leakage captured by internal microphones, and empirically demonstrate its efficacy for attacks. In one scenario, an attacker steals the secret ECDSA signing keys of the counterparty in a voice call. In another, the attacker detects what web page their counterparty is loading. In the third scenario, a player in the Counter-Strike online multiplayer game can detect a hidden opponent waiting in ambush, by analyzing how the 3D rendering done by the opponent’s computer induces faint but detectable signals into the opponent’s audio feed.

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Posted on January 23, 2024 at 7:09 AM • 46 Comments

Comments

K.S. • January 23, 2024 9:37 AM

This is likely only possible in the controlled lab conditions (using built-in microphone, over a LAN connection, and using specific ECDSA implementation that makes timing attacks more likely).

Uthor • January 23, 2024 10:10 AM

Dang, I should get back into playing Counter-Strike, but players seem to have gotten so much better in the last 15 years or so!

Clive Robinson • January 23, 2024 11:04 AM

@ Bruce, ALL,

“Side Channels Are Common”

Not “common” but “ubiquitous” and inevitable in all communications channels.

I’ve been through this a few times on the blog over the past two decades.

But the proof if people want to work it out is fundemental to physics.

To communicate is a process of “work” thus uses energy over time, and no work process is 100% efficient. Therefore the waste energy is a loss that as it has borh an amplitude and a time function can and does carry information.

Further Claude Shannon proved that not only does the transfer of information require redundancy he also showed how much information could be sent in a period of time due to the bandwidth of the channel.

Gus Simmons showed via his Prisoners problem that all information channels due to the redundance, could have another information channel in the redundance of the first channel and not only can you not stop it you can not prove it is being used.

For any information to be carried by energy two things are required,

1, Sufficient bandwidth to carry the information.
2, Sufficient energy in the available bandwidth to overcome the inherant noise caused by charge movment of free electrons under thermal influance (Johnson-Nyquist noise[1]) and the like.

There are three basic ways energy from the inefficience from work can be transported and it decays with distance(r),

1, Conduction, decay 1/(r)
2, Radiation, decay 1/(r^2)
3, Convection, decay ~1/(r^3)

The fundementals of TEMPEST and Passive EmSec and since the 1980’s “Electromagnetic Compatability”(EMC) is you control three things,

1, Energy
2, Bandwidth
3, Distance

So that any “compromising emissions” are “put below the standards mask” which for TEMPEST and EmSec is the assumed “noise floor”(-174dBm).

The thing you have to be carefull of is “transducers” that convert one type of energy to another.

For instance consider the noise from a moving train, normally the sound power level drops with the square of the distance. However it also gets conducted along the rails that then re-radiate it. If you stand at a quiet railway station you can hear the rails twitch long before you can hear or often see the train.

Similar applies to “sound powered telephones” the moving coil microphone generates electrical current from the sound energy, that is then conducted down the telephone pair where at the ear piece another moving coil turns it back into sound energy.

All coils in a magnetic field move when a changing current goes through them. This includes the filter inductors that reduce “electrical bandwidth” which is why you can hear some older lower frequency “Switch Mode Power Supplies”(SMP) “sing” under certain load conditions.

Likewise all capacitors generate sound due to energy going into and comming out of storage.

Fun fact if you make a large capacitor with two 1m square aluminium plates, and you put polythene sheet between them and connect them up to a flourescent tube. If you hinge the top plate and lift the open edge up and down the tube will flash.

Electrical arcs have considerable power in them and it can be very lineraly converted to sound look up Quad ESL Electro-Static Loud speakers to see how long they’ve been in peoples homes and in recording studios.

I’ve a very very long list of such energy channels and how they can be modulated with intentional or unintentionally information.

In the US TEMPEST is still technically “classified” so difficult to get information on. However all you need to know can be found in high school physics books as basic knowledge and books on EMC for the basics of the more specialised knowledge.

There is further information like “clock the inputs, clock the outputs” to stop both system transparancy and time based “jitter” side channels down to a low bandwidth. Also “Fail Hard, Fail Long” to reduce the bandwidth of protocol side channels.

Importantly remember that attacks are not always passive thus apply care with regards channels going in reverse such as those for errors and exceptions.

[1] Johnson-Nyquist noise also called thermal noise, Johnson noise, or Nyquist noise is the random electronic noise caused by the thermal agitation of charge carriers (primarily free electrons within an electrical conductor when it is at equilibrium. This happens regardless of any applied voltage and is related to the resistance of the conductor and the bandwidth available. ALL physical resistors have a voltage noise that can be found from,

VNR =√(4kTBR)

Where,

k = Boltzmann’s Constant 1.38 x 10-23
T = Absolute Temperature = T(°C+273.15)
B = Bandwidth in Hz
R = Resistance in Ohms.

So, for a 1000 ohm resistor at 25°C it generates a VNR of 4nV / √Hz.

Mostly for ease of usage noise is given as a power value in a bandwidth of 1hz (unless otherwise stated). So P = V^2/R therefore PN = 4kTB and is given in Decibel milliwatts (dBm). As a rule of thumb the “noise floor” at room temprature in a one hz bandwidth is assumed to be -174dBm

Anonymous • January 23, 2024 2:40 PM

You are exactly correct on the ubiquity of side channels. I wonder why this is not obvious to more people: everything interacts with everything.

echo • January 23, 2024 6:46 PM

I’m much more interested in people not technology. Communications systems for example are often used to model healthcare systems. Very little material is published on the human factor which is arguably the most important as it is the primary pinch point. In fact the medical profession is among the worst as it is primarily a top down rote learned silo. One example is the basic failure of medical colleges and doctors and indeed the medical profession as a whole to be well trained in decision making. While decision making is critical, I kid you not, the medical profession in the UK at least has only just got around to formally examining decision making and exploring the idea of creating guidelines and training modules.

Any idiot can do technology. It’s often very linear, formulaic, and identikit. People less so as ego, self-marketing, and the low and fuzzy bandwidth of human to human communication has a low bit rate and poor quality control. See also: military and finance.

Lots of things in the UK are classified in practice even if they don’t attract a classification. This can be down to ego or wriggly legalisms and people not joining the dots when everything is connected to everything. One of the joys of an uncodified constitution based on common law. See also: how the form of language and form of written language warps perception and worldviews and reasoning processes.

Art and narrative subverts decision making especially among the more patriarchal elements of society. It’s another reason why art and women’s narratives attract censorship.

https://theconversation.com/the-maths-of-rightwing-populism-easy-answers-confidence-reassuring-certainty-221355

The maths of rightwing populism: easy answers + confidence = reassuring certainty

[…]

Because politics largely boils down to communication, the mathematics of communication theory can help us understand why voters are drawn to parties that use simple, loud messaging in their campaigning – as well as how they get away with using highly questionable messaging. Traditionally, this is the theory that enables us to listen to radio broadcasts and make telephone calls. But American mathematician Norbert Wiener went so far as to argue that social phenomena can only be understood via the theory of communication.

This essay rather proves the point but if everyone else wants to hide behind a piledrive of maths and a roundtrip of the obvious be my guest. Personally I’m crap at maths and view it as an extremely solid illusion. Yes, it’s useful and yes analysis of simplistic systems (such as GPU and audio system interaction) is useful although they only go so far and both are quite a limited sandbox. The maths and case study cited in the topic falls flat on its bum because of the number of variables and probabilities when applied outside of the laboratory and linear lecture. Sure, it can land someone in jail if they’re unlucky but it’s a distraction from the whole why are they in jail thing. And that brings you back to people hence this essay.

Being a domain expert means I can pretty easily figure someone out and discover directly and indirectly what their sources are because people leak information. That could be from an organisation, social group, or in some cases the exact web page they have read. This is because I know orders of magnitude more than they do. In some cases I know an exact person they may be referring to even if no identifying information was given. Sometimes I even know a person who knows them and via them know the primary data and what was said or done behind closed doors behind layers of seniority or multiple onion layers of indirection. It’s quite funny when this happens.

The Post Office scandal is doing the rounds at the moment. It’s a classic case study of everything which is wrong and of placing too much confidence in “certified professionals”, job titles, and patriarchal privilege. Like, Robert Daily, the investigator in the Peter Holmes’s case, has (surprise, surprise) just been caught putting his wife’s educational details on his CV and it only gets worse from there.

So, yes. Sidechannels… Forget niche tech. It’s people. Always people who are the problem and wow do people leak information… And if someone is detecting it someone is trying to fake it.

Clive Robinson • January 23, 2024 7:17 PM

@ Anonymous, ALL,

Re : Common knowledge is often neither common or accepted.

“I wonder why this is not obvious to more people”

With sufficient observation and correct measurment information becomes knowledge and it can usually be used effectively if not constructively.

But in the ICT industry not only is observation rarely done, even when it is it’s not measured in any way that is particularly useful.

In part because nobody has come up with reliable, repeatable and above all comparative measurands.

But also many in the industry do not like the idea of “Not 100%” or “Not Possible”. They are cognatively biased to square the circle in some way.

If I prove something can not be done then some are immediatly biased against the messanger. Especcialy if the proof is not what they want to hear or acknowledge…

So to avoid cognitive dissonance they mentally put their fingers in their ears and humm so they can maintain ignorance and somehow think they will be happy…

Shannon’s work has stood for 75years, a liftime by many measures and it stands as proven.

Simmon’s work has stood for 40years, a working lifetime by many measures and it stands as proven.

The physics is fundemental and taught to pre-teens. EMC has shown both emissions and susceptablity are harmfull to physical system function let alone information security. The thing about EMC is it’s firmly based on physics and reliable, repeatable, and above all has mesurands that have been proven over and over from fundemental knowledge and the science arising from it.

So cognative bias against well tested and verified proof…

That’s not the attitude of a scientist or engineer…

The take it and use it in furtherance of both theoretical knowledge and practical implementations of systems that work and work reliably and repeatedly.

Those systems built on cognative bias against proof… The industry appears full of them.

The question of “Why?” naturally arises and the answer appears to be,

“The industry is congenitally predisposed to not learn from it’s history, even that which is well within living memory.”

Some will squeal “Snot Fair” or similar, but the onus is now on them to come up with what they consider a more realistic explanation.

But history suggests they won’t…

echo • January 23, 2024 11:20 PM

Hello, hello. Speaking of mathemathatickry.

“These are deep issues, and we are yet very far from explanations. I would argue that no clear answers will come forward unless the interrelating features of all these worlds are seen to come into play. No one of these issues will be solved in isolation from the others. I have referred to these three worlds [Editors note: Maths, matter, mind] and the mysteries that relate them to one another. No doubt there are not three worlds but *one*, the true nature of which we do not even glimpse at present.”

— Roger Penrose, “Shadows of the Mind”

This is an intriguing attempt by Penrose to articulate questions he has. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s an answer to anything but there are certainly horizons to what we know and ultimately what we may be able to know. My take from this is a little meta and puts a pin in the ego bubble of those who lather themselves in science and engineering when the best state of the art and practice doesn’t cover the problem.

I’m perfectly aware of and use systems theory in a loose everyday way. The problem with people who turn it into a religion they can wave around like a stick is that not everything can be condensed down to inputs and outputs. That’s why intelligence reports are full of words like “probable” and “likely”. Maths has its place but not when it’s turned into an appeal to authority to censor and use as a bully stick. There’s plenty of pretty hard science out there which reduces down to “probable” and “likely” in application. Just because it doesn’t reduce down to E=MC squared doesn’t mean it’s not valid. Yes, to argue something “based on the laws of physics” can be useful and at times very persuasive it doesn’t apply to all things all the time. Even a domain expert can be wrong especially when dealing with other fields or the intersection of other fields and certainly even physicists are not exempt. Heck, they can’t even model fluid dynamics properly let alone anything, to borrow a chess term, “off book”.

Most people have never heard of systems theory let alone read anything on it. As for dealing with a wall of maths their eyes will glaze over. The “But physics!” line only has so much application beyond trying to look clever in a shoot from the hip essay. It goes about as far as trying to explain “fiscal drag” to the gas boiler engineer.

An £8 stick of Nyx suede matte lipstick from Boots gets me through more doors than discussing macro-economics or most of everything else certainly within earshot of men. Jeez.

But the point is you can overcook this stuff magnitudes beyond the point of absurdity. Apart from nerding out or self-declaring it as some kind of measure in a lot of use cases it’s just bragging or a stick to beat people with and I can’t find that excuse in the maths.

Winter • January 24, 2024 12:00 AM

@Clive

To communicate is a process of “work” thus uses energy over time, and no work process is 100% efficient. Therefore the waste energy is a loss that as it has borh an amplitude and a time function can and does carry information.

So the way to go is to minimize “work” and increase efficiency. Less energy waste is less side channels.

So we should develop reversible computing:
‘https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-future-of-computing-depends-on-making-it-reversible

For example, in 2004 Krishna Natarajan (a student I was advising at the University of Florida) and I showed in detailed simulations that a new and simplified family of circuits for reversible computing called two-level adiabatic logic, or 2LAL, could dissipate as little as 1 eV of energy per transistor per cycle—about 0.001 percent of the energy normally used by logic signals in that generation of CMOS.

Clive Robinson • January 24, 2024 3:15 AM

@ Winter,

“So the way to go is to minimize “work” and increase efficiency. Less energy waste is less side channels.”

Not “less side channels” they still have to exist because as Shannon and Simmons showed respectively.

If there is no redundancy, then “information” can not be transfered.

If there is redundancy then side channels are a result that can not be avoided.

Look at it this way how many bits of information are there when the Dr comes out od the delivery room and says to the expectant father,

“Congratulations sir, it’s a boy.”

To the average nervous Joe just two basic bits,

1, The baby is a boy
2, The delivery process probabl went OK.

The first might have been known already, the second hoped for / expected.

But the Dr could have used other words than,

1, congratulations
2, sir
3, it’s
4, boy

Each can be a code which in turn can carry a cipher.

Which is where,

1, The basic information “overt primary channel”.
2, Which can carry a “covert code channel”.
3, Which can carry a “covert cipher channel”.

As an observer you don’t know if the overt primary channel is or is not using the two side covert channels.

Or for that matter how many other side channels the basic primary information channel or potential side channels have.

That is in essence Gus Simmon’s Prisoner Problem.

The reason for the potential for different words for the salutation is complex and argued about by linguists, sociologists and similar. Some will say “it conveys emotion” so is an intentional side channel of “social norms”. And whilst it’s true the Dr need not have used any emotion in the salutation by just using “sir” the “congratulations” also acts as a preamble to warn all in the waiting room a message is starting, for which “Excuse me” would equally serve but add in another word thus redundancy, thus side channel…

Can you reduce the work and inefficiency?

Yes but will it stop the side channels?

No the Dr used “boy” but could have used “lad” which gives you 1bit of side channel for broadly the same work/inefficiency.

What shortening the message does by reducing the salutation is make the message delivery process more fragile and also increases the risk of error.

This is a sweet spot issue, that is how much extra effort do you put into ensuring you do not have to repeat the message… Thus salutations do serve a necessery purpose, they are not just there out of politness, carrying emotion and being side channels.

So they are needed, but by how much? Well that depends on the situation of how much “noise” there is and if the message sender can quell it or not.

In the early 1900’s it became clear that with sending radio signals by Code, there were two basic types of noise and thus they got codes of their own in the list of abbreviations called “Q Codes”,

1, Natural noise “QRN”
2, Manmade noise “QRM”

You can look “Q Codes” up for their format but Q is a rare letter to start a word with and in English almost always followed by U. Thus QR indicates two things firstly it’s a Q code secondly it’s to do with the “R”adio layer of the message sending system (there are other Q codes for other communications layers like QS for “S”ignal as well as the later aeronautic codes etc).

This intertwining of function and preamble appears almost natural, but for those following non social aspects of messages they indicate a need for increasing the robustness and reliability of the communications layers individually.

Such “overloading of function” is a desire to reduce work and increase efficiency, but from necessity it has to be inefficient due to uncertainty in the lowest layers of the communications process.

What Claude Shannon did was firstly “lay the bag of snakes out” then give them reliable quantities and measurands, by which proofs of necessary function could be given. Part of which was explaining the reason for “sweet spots” and the way you get minimas because as one thing becomes more efficient or less work, something else becomes less efficient or more work, even if just probabilisticaly, thus that “stochastic” means you “have to raise the game” above the best minima to not just account for the average of the minima but some combined minima for the overal system. Which always necessarily involves redundancy.

Anecdotaly, it apparently came as a surprise to Shannon when another academic researcher pointed out that what he was showing with information was the same as was was known for thermodynamics and thus the reason he called it “entropy”.

All of which can be explained to “the child in us” with the playfull analog of “lego bricks” and a little guiding patience.

Winter • January 24, 2024 3:25 AM

@Clive

Not “less side channels” they still have to exist because as Shannon and Simmons showed respectively.

Your post is a long way to say that it is indeed less channels. If there is an acoustic side-channel, then better power efficiency reduces the information leaked in this side channel.

If reversible computation is fully implemented, the information to be cleared can be stored and all be deleted, emitting energy, at a later time, reducing the opportunities for timing attacks.

Your example is about steganography, hiding a message in another message. That is not what is normally considered a “side channel attack”.

Clive Robinson • January 24, 2024 5:26 AM

@ lurker,

Re : Stormyness in British isles

“And you’ve had some nasty weather over your way, would tend to keep folks indoors?”

Whilst “tornado shelters” or their equivalent “hurricane holes” are not a feature of British gardens since we dug out the WWII air raid shelters, the way things are going, such “if you know a better hole” features may be comming back.

No sooner had the unwelcome house guest Henk left the stalkerish lady friend[1] came storming in throwing it about and generally rasing loud and unplesant echos.

Henk moved just a couple of roof tiles on my house that as they were low down the roof led to considerable water cascading in…

So during the rain storm there I was up in the loft moving the roof tiles with my fingers back into place. Not something a disabled person due to go into surgery next week realy should be doing. But as the old saw has it, “needs must where the devil drives” (or Hell-Hag in this case).

Unfortunately the tabs at the top underside of the tiles that hook over the batons have broken off and thus only friction from the roughness of the terracotta was keeping the tiles in place.

The usuall solution for this as the tiles are nolonger made is to fold a lead –or these days less environmentaly harmfull metal– strip up to make a hanger like a flattened and squared of S to go under the tile. The bottom end going up over the bottom edge of the tile, the top folded down over the baton.

Usually this hanger is only half folded and slid up under the tile then when in the correct place folded over the baton. There is no way as I’m having trouble standing let alone walking even a few steps I’m going to go up a ladder and onto the roof. Contrary to the words of the MASH theme tune suicide is not painless especially when tried by an idiot short fall, and I’ve already more than enough troubles from broken bones from sporting activities in a mis-spent but fun youth to want any more.

So although not Panama this man had a plan… Use not a metal strap from the inside but make a wire hanger that could be slid in sideways with the hook flat to the roof. Then turned up so the hook was vertical and slid back up then have the top folded over the baton. For various reasons to long to go into it was not actually practical with the wire I had on hand. So I had to think up another solution.

Which is to use a strap from the inside but rather than fold a bottom hook, instead glue it using a modern adhesive to the underside of the tile. The problem a glue that sticks to the unglazed underside of terracotta tiles as a general rule does not stick to a shiny metal like aluminium. Likewise aluminium corrodes with time and expands, becoming an oxide almost as hard as diamonds thus will break away from the glue so the straping and glue I have is only going to be good for a decade… A more permanent solution was needed because century or more old even non decorative tiles unfortunately tend to attract the authoritarian interest of council “conservation officers”. Who will take great joy in placing bankrupting fees and restrictions on what you can do as someone a little way away has discovered…

Thus the new plan necesitates different straping and a more modern glue than two part epoxy. The trouble is that whilst epoxy makes a strong bond it becomes increasingly brittle as it ages and can not easly withstand later “shear forces”.

So there I am waiting for the right things to “come in” when…

That stalking female, second unwanted guest, came storming in to throw things around smashing up my neighbours garden perimiter and repeated the problems I’ve already had more than enough of… So showey delinquency on max like an oversized rottweiler dog with cheap lipstick smeared on for a “come on boys” type attitude[2].

The freebe Metro newspaper had a cartoon yesterday of a man standing looking out of his French Windows with a glum expression with a small but jubilant child doing a happy happy dance as the man says “Well, we’ve lost the shed, but gained two trampolines.”.

[1] There is a meteorological convention of giving storms names. That are both in alphabetical order and alternating sex. So Henk was Male which ment the second tempestuous nuisance that came in kicking off and exhibiting the worst of “look at me” narcissistic behaviours was Female. Mind you as it was called Isha, I can not but wonder if secretly it’s an acronym for “In Storms Hell Accompanies”. But… the way things are going we are lucky there are Warrior Princess names like Xenthia, Yarra, and Zendaya around… after all you would not want your home smashed up by Queenie or Violet-Elizabeth (Bott).

[2] No I’m not talking about Sarah Palin and her quote of,

‘They say the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull – lipstick.’

That would be not just to outré but bring up overly political echos of the past when they realy are not wanted here.

FA • January 24, 2024 6:02 AM

@Clive,

But the Dr could have used other words than ‘congratulations, sir, it’s, boy’.

That is NOT the mechanism that Simmons is discussing in his paper [1], and he says so quite explicitly (second footnote on page 51 of [1]):

  • … the secret communication is not by way of a coded selection of messages or of prearranged code words appearing in a messsage, etc.

The actual context in the paper is:

  1. Warden W allows prisoners A and B to exchange plaintext messages, so he can verify the contents before passing them on.
  2. A and B are allowed to use some system to authenticate these messages, provided W can check the validity of the authentication data and be confident that no information is hidden in it.

Simmons shows that A and B can construct an authentication system based on asymmetric crypto, with W having the public key, and such that part of its capacity is used to carry additional information, and the probability of W being able to detect that such information is present can be reduced to any desired nonzero value.

The essential difference with using specific words to convey additional data is that in that case W can require the sender to rephrase the message before passing it on.

[1] in “Advances in Cryptology – Proceedings of Crypto 83”, Ed. D. Chaum,
Plenum Press NY, ISBN 0-306-41637-9, pp. 51-67.

echo • January 24, 2024 6:52 AM

Clive is being a toddler again with a hamfisted coded message buried in his last post. Moving on…

Further to my comments on being piledrived by maths versus reasoning and pragmatics much later, this morning, I watched a recent interview with Penrose who is no slouch with physics and mathematics (as you might expect from a Nobel Laureate and one of Hawking’s PhD thesis supervisors) which touched on exactly this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itLIM38k2r0

People can skip the discussion about quantum consciousness unless they want an overview of the topic. The interesting and salient part of the discussion was a good rumble through mathematics theory, reasoning, and pragmatics. He also touches on professional ego and blind spots. Penrose largely repeats what I was saying although said it with properly laid out clarity. The discussion then moves on again to close on quantum computing related topics and sundry. Just to torture a few people there’s a sideways mention of cryptography in there. Overall the discussion was pretty accessible. If nobody listens to me they will listen to him and he explained that kind of thing quite well too!

Clive Robinson • January 24, 2024 9:52 AM

@ Winter,

“Your post is a long way to say that it is indeed less channels.”

I know English is not your first language, so there may be “lost in translation” going on. So what do you mean by less?

In any given messege||system the number of channels is the same.

Altering the energy or work does not change that, which is what I said.

I went on to show that as an observer you could not know how many channels were in the message||system

If you mean less energy/time mages the range “less” than yes that’s a given in any of the basic ways energy is transported.

Further because the information is carried in the amplitude and time functions of the energy transportation effective bandwidth of the channel decreases due to the noise floor issue.

Clive Robinson • January 24, 2024 10:08 AM

@ Winter,

“Your example is about steganography, hiding a message in another message. That is not what is normally considered a “side channel attack”.”

No it’s not about steganography it’s showing,

1, How channels exist in channels due to redundancy.
2, How an observer can not tell if there is a channel there.
3, If a channel is being used or not.

The reason to use code and cipher is because they have two distinctly different charecteristics.

Unless “keyed” at which time codes become ciphers, codes are invarient. That is the same information produces the same result.

This can easily be shown to suffer from correlation to “outside the system events” if the events get repeated.

The use of a cipher on the otherhand implies that the message key changes with each use, therefore there is no correlation with the message and “outside system events”. But there may be correlation between meta-data in the communications channel. That is if you send a message about say work, and every evening such a message is sent you and the second party drop off the grid and a high end jewelry robbery at some “entitled persons home”… Might indicate you are realy Robin Hood and the second party little John 😉

Winter • January 24, 2024 10:13 AM

@Clive

So what do you mean by less?

I mean, an attacker can use “spilled energy” in specific channels to extract information about the computations and communication that is taking place. If there is less spilled energy in these “side channels”, then there will be “less” side channels to attack.

The original abstract writes:

We show that built-in sensors in commodity PCs, such as microphones, inadvertently capture electromagnetic side-channel leakage from ongoing computation. Moreover, this information is often conveyed by supposedly-benign channels such as audio recordings and common Voice-over-IP applications, even after lossy compression.

If a system spills energy in an audio channel as a result of thermal waste, this channel will become unavailable if the waste energy dips below a threshold. The same with a side channel using EM radiation.

If you start with a system that leaks information in audio and EM channels, then a system that does not leak information in audio and EM channels has a reduced number of side channels.

But I see this is not really a good way to talk about side channel attacks as it will be impossible to enumerate the side channels to begin with.

Clive Robinson • January 24, 2024 10:31 AM

@ Winter,

Re : Toffli and similar gates.

“So we should develop reversible computing”

It’s a subject I have cursory knowledge and for various reasons try not to get into.

One such is the arguments are for a full reversal not a partial reversal.

The implication of that being that the result has to be 100% undone by the computational logic.

Which in turn predicates 100% efficient duplication of results from the computational logic to the output/storage logic if you ever want to get any answers out of the system.

When similar output issues came up with Quantum Computing and it proved to be a major stumbling block, I “back shelved” my interest in both Quantum Computing and reversable logic in favour of other things that were more likely to prove usefull and in a time frame where positive ROI was likely.

Clive Robinson • January 24, 2024 11:25 AM

@ Winter,

Re : Side Channels and range

“If there is less spilled energy in these “side channels”, then there will be “less” side channels to attack.”

Both true and not true.

At the source the number of side channels is the same for any given message||system –if linear–
regardless of energy (so not true at the source).

However as my first post on this thread shows the energy diminishes with range. However back ground noise or the noise floor is predominantly due to Nyquist noise in the receiver input of the person monitoring. This means that “at the receiver” two things have actually happened.

1, The information bandwidth of the side channel has diminished.
2, The signal to noise ratio(SNR) of all the side channels has diminished.

In both cases this will effect every single side channel negatively at the receiver.

In some cases the energy in the bandwidth at the recever (Eb/No) is nolonger capable of supporting the transportation of the desired rate of information.

The side channel is not gone, it just cann’t support the information rate thus is not usable at that rate. Take the rate right down and the side channel becomes viable again.

The -173.8 + 10log10(Bw) noise floor is in relation to a 1Hz bandwidth. If you close the needed bandwidth down to 0.1Hz then the usable side channel range goes up by a factor of sqr(1/0.1) or ~3 for a radient energy transportation of information.

I’ve got radio systems next door that can send data reliably at “30dB below the noise floor”, but they make a fly in amber look like it’s moving quickly…

Clive Robinson • January 24, 2024 11:57 AM

@ FA,

I guess you are not understanding the Simmons paper and thus you say,

“Simmons shows that A and B can construct an authentication system based on asymmetric crypto“

Should say,

“the redundancy in asymmetric crypto”

It has to be asymetric because symetric has next to no redundancy and it won’t work with a bandwidth that is of much use.

Go and read the EuroCrypt notes from I think it’s 1980 you will find a paper in there where refrence is made to just how much redundancy there is in asymetric crypto.

But you can work it out from the information in,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime-counting_function

And put it in 0.5(n^2 – n) and compare that to all the integers in the range.

Alteratively go read the works of Adam Young and his supervisor Moti Yung –who pops up here occasionaly– and read about how to build a system to covertly stealing keys using the redundancy in asymetric crypto.

You are confusing what Gus Simmons proved as a general proof with the example he used for an explicit case proof to do with a proposal in a treaty.

The base general proof is,

“Where ever there is redundancy available in a primary communications channel then a side channel in that primary channel can be made and used.”

If some cryptographic function is used on the information then the side channel becomes “covert” to some level.

The use of asymetric crypto where the encryption and decryption keys are different not only alows “secure signing” it alows things like covert key stealing etc.

If you think what I say about redundance being necesary for side channels then I realy urge you to go away do the research come up with the proof and publish it.

Because if you do so you will I assure you become quite famous / infamous (depending on who receives it).

Just one thing be diligent in the effort and don’t waste time coming back here untill it’s published.

Winter • January 24, 2024 12:11 PM

@Clive

The implication of that being that the result has to be 100% undone by the computational logic.

Only if you want 100% efficiency. Outside of perfection being impossible, very high efficiencies are not needed to prevent side channel attacks. Reversible computing also allows the controlled release of waste heat. A combination of higher efficiency and controlled release of heat can already reduce the effectiveness of side channel attacks.

echo • January 24, 2024 4:23 PM

What rude people there are in here. I didn’t bother treading any of that deliberately anti-social piledrive which has nothing to do with anything. All of this started ebcause I wouldn’t back down over Clive unjustifiably slapping people off. It’s obvious what Clive is up to and there are those willing to go along with it. It’s all very hierarchical and in-group outgroup and gatekeepy.

Still, the Penrose discussion puts anyone who uses “certified professional” and mathematics to bully people in their place even if they won’t admit it. It’s also interesting that Pensorse admits when he doesn’t know what he is talking about and admits when he is stepping outside of his domain of expertise and admits when his focus of interest is extremely narrow and doesn’t preclude other efforts. It’s a good job he does. Sabine Hossenfelder has made the mistake of not doing this and landed flat on her ass. The only reason why she got away with it was minor celebrity status and very few people have an interest in the subject matter beyond what they read in newspaper headlines. Yes, she did get rinsed but, again, people who are not subject matter experts really don’t get the discussion. Even a multidisciplinary panel of subject matter experts find it tough going often, I think, because their expertise in one subject gets in the way of their understanding and they find onboarding new information a bit hard to swallow as the gatekeeping kicks in.

There’s academic papers and other material on this stuff. It’s quite interesting how some siloed social hierarchies develop certain habits and practices and psychologies and so on. It gets a bit more complex when you take into account political science and gender studies and developmental psychology and sociology. You can toss in systems theory and information theory too if you will. The Penrose interview alludes to elements of this if you know what to look for and view it as a whole and take a few steps back and look around the landscape.

With regard to the previous paragraph one element worth lifting out is Penrose has reached a place in life where he can have fun without fear or favour. He has nothing left to prove and can afford to be curious and afford to be wrong. That frees him up mentally and he gives himself permission to psychologically move into this space and not be an ass about it.

This is far more interesting to me. I couldn’t give a hoot for the gadget or reactive walls of mathematics. There’s nothing to learn there unless you want to sit at a desk gawking at a gadget and ritually recycling maths. Like, where’s the application?

Clive Robinson • January 25, 2024 8:23 PM

@ MIT Middling,

Re : Request not qualified.

“could somebody please explain this in greater detail?”

You don’t qualify what you would like explained.

The link you have given in the URL holder[1] points to a .png

Try asking for what you want help with in plain text, and you will probably get an answer if the thread is still actively visited.

[1] As a rule of thumb long term readers and commenters nolonger click on links or even put the cursor over them. This is due to them being a very real and quite unpleasant security risk quite deliberately built in to the application by it’s designers and authors. In essence the presentation applications like web browsers and Email readers “background load” the link. This has three basic problems,

1, It enables the site the URL points to, too know which page the link came from.
2, It enables the site the URL points to, too log sufficient information to “finger print” the users computer near if not actually uniquely.
3, Way to many “presentation applications” like web browsers are either defective in their own right or use defective libraries. Either way the execute malware and the like hidden in image files.

So around here links not in the post body or hidden in some way are consider “Guilty untill proven innocent”.

StegHide alternatives • January 25, 2024 9:05 PM

Sorry, pro audio and musicianship cannot contain all this. There is no capacity left.

You may have good intentions, and yet we don’t have enough cultural bandwidth nor resolution depth to properly shield or obscure cryptic cultures.

Please try archiving and sideloading (downloading) everything from the internet onto nonvolatile storage instead. Please maintain ways to study those contents as well.

The search engines seem like they are getting bored and restless (and less and less willing to be servile; and that’s okay with me too).

sincerely, Veracrypt

Winter • January 25, 2024 11:15 PM

@echo

Sabine Hossenfelder has made the mistake of not doing this and landed flat on her ass.

Please elaborate? What did Ms Hossenfelder do “wrong”? And why is it relevant to this discussion?

Just stabbing someone in a drive-by attack simply makes you look mean and makes me question your motives.

As for Penrose, he did some marvelous work in mathematics and theoretical physics. But insisting consciousness must be the result of a quantum phenomenon in neurons was “not even wrong”. This showed he lacks the modesty of knowing when to be silent and just listen.

emily’s post • January 26, 2024 12:07 AM

Talking again about the messaging potential afforded by redundancy :

Redundancy offering “wiggle-room” recalls to mind Lie group theory’s infinitesimal generator, which in day to day terms says you can get in or out of any parking space that is any ε > 0 bigger than the car.

Maybe this intuitive analogy can be turned into a real proof.

echo • January 26, 2024 12:40 AM

@Winter

I simply picked Penrose and Hossenfelder as they’re both good with maths and physics and there was enough of the right kind of material by both to illustrate a point.

As for Penrose and consciousness I simply don’t know and have never voiced an opinion as to whether his idea is correct or not. If I recall in an interview I linked to he said he’s fine with being wrong.

Hossenfelder made the mistake of believing being an expert in one field gave her weight in another field before promptly flunking it. A none expert might take her word for it and that has consequences for other people. An expert would spot her mistakes instantly. As for the subject itself there’s topics I maneuver around as to the best of my knowledge nobody posting here is an expert in the subject and it’s too much bother to discuss for too many reasons. You can always scan through Sabine’s none physics Youtubes and look for rebuttals. You’ll find the one on my mind quick enough if you’ve ever paid attention to anything I have posted. I could link to some peer reviewed papers which were published after Hossenfelder’s overreach and stomped on her conclusions but, like I said, it’s not worth the bother discussing it here. There’s too many people who think they know about the subject because they read some nonsense in the newspapers.

And this is where it begins and ends.

Winter • January 26, 2024 1:18 AM

@echo

There’s too many people who think they know about the subject because they read some nonsense in the newspapers.

I know, I read the comment section of this blog.

That Ms Hossenfelder tries to bring science to the masses is commendable. Many people try to do that. All make errors. Why is this a problem? And why pick specifically on her? You write yourself she has minor celebrity status and very few people have an interest in the subject matter.

When being wrong is considered a vice, who would want to take the risk if trying to be right?

echo • January 26, 2024 9:13 PM

I do agree Hossenfelder brings science to the masses in an accessible way. She useful challenges some dogmas and is entertaining. It’s one reason why, I think, I was the first to link to her on this blog a year or so ago.

I picked out Hossenfelder for one single example for the reasons stated. It could have been someone else and there are PhD’s with big mouths who have stuck their nose in but Hossenfelder was the only one with maths and physics skills which was required to make the point. Her minor celebrity status and audience trust causes problems when she goofs badly with sensitive topics. This spreads disinformation which can be very hard to counter especially as so many people don’t have the time or interest to go into the particular topic I have in mind, and if they do biases and skews kick in. To the best of my knowledge she ignored other channels which weighed in with detailed and (very) polite rebuttals and invitations to discuss the material while she’s very quick to appear on physics channels. I also note she didn’t revisit the topic and correct her mistakes when the peer reviewed papers dropped. The peer reviewed papers don’t cover anything any expert in the field didn’t know already. They only filled a gap in the published science because until then nobody had wanted to pay for the research and write up the conclusions formally.

Hossenfelder isn’t the first or last to do this. Her effort was okay as far as it went although was problematic. She’s not even remotely the worst, nor the worst with the fewest excuses. There’s others outside the field who do go off on one including acclaimed leaders of their field carrying a long list of awards who don’t listen to PhD’s who actually are experts in the critical bits plus a few academics who make a career out of being cancelled while they swan off to a lucrative “think tank”, as well as the odd hanger on who was discredited years ago by an avalanche of peer reviewed papers.

The media tend to listen to the loudest voices. It’s just disappointing Hossenfelder’s platform wasn’t a useful counterpoint. Not just the mistakes of a “certified professional” hiding behind maths and physics when the maths and physics doesn’t actually say anything but how they mistakes were handled. It was a missed opportunity.
People who aren’t physicists barely get the wave slit experiment or retrocausality. It’s not a surprise, therefore, that a none expert like Hossenfelder missed this one.

To end on a positive note:

Handling of this issue aside Hossenfelder has herself commented on the politics and office politics of research and funding in physics. Those are fair points along with Penrose comments on professional approaches and computability versus none computability.

It’s likely the new papers will be appearing in a legal case challenging a regulator. I’m not sure what the current stage is. Probably pre-action at the moment. It was known at the time but the regulator chose to ignore the expert opinion now officially science due to political capture and meddling.

Now we just need a judge who doesn’t fancy himself because he did a chemistry degree decades before the new science emerged. (Yes, it has happened.)

echo • January 27, 2024 12:09 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNp06dd83DA

GOP lawmaker claims he’s ‘qualified’ to ban abortion because he’s a veterinarian.

There’s mistakes because of talking outside of your expertise then there’s out of the park stupidity.

To justify banning abortion in Wisconsin, one state GOP lawmaker argued he knows “mammalian fetal development better than probably anyone here.” Why? Because he’s a veterinarian and has performed “thousands of ultrasounds on animals.”

Like a certain well known billionaire who claimed to know more about industrial processes than anyone else alive?

I really don’t know where to begin with this one. I’ve read worse but this would be people who zero job title having any overlap and zero knowledge beyond whatever pamphlet they read in school being triggered by a tabloid newspaper headline.

Then there’s Endometriosis and ectopic pregnancies. What does he know about that? Or the emotional labour and safety risks of dealing with abusive partners? Or pregnancies where women could have died if they continued yet who went on to have multiple children?

Most of the point of law is to “resolve a mischief” not an excuse for politicians to be a mischief.

emily’s post • January 27, 2024 9:54 PM

Re: Is there any chance I would I Lie to you ?

Somebody thinks so, viz. [1] –

The subjects of stochastic processes, information theory, and Lie groups are usually treated separately from each other. This unique two-volume set presents these topics in a unified setting, thereby building bridges between fields that are rarely studied by the same people.

  1. Stochastic Models, Information Theory, and Lie Groups, Volume 1, Gregory S. Chirikjian
    https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-8176-4803-9

Clive Robinson • January 28, 2024 12:57 AM

@ emily’s post,

“Is there any chance I would I Lie to you ?”

Ahh what a question, here I stand in “the LEE” of a cold dark doorway looking out at a world covered in the hardened random fall of drops that rained down, yet so uniform in it’s coverage you would think it must have been Ordered so to be.

The space filled such that it is manifold in it’s envelopment.

Does it spin a yarn and unite and tie together with it’s Skein that which would otherwise be disparate?

Who can tell what SNOW should show?

Each drop in Series, Not blocked, with but One appearance, it Writes it’s message as a record of it’s place and time.

[1] For those not versed Lie is said as Lee, which likewise true of Lea, which is an eighty yard Skein. Which is a subject that in the past has been much in our hosts thoughts.

[2] For another “SNOW joke”,

https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/12/06/the-snow-theorem-and-latency-optimal-read-only-transactions/

bl5q sw5N • January 29, 2024 9:50 AM

@ echo

the point of law is to “resolve a mischief”

Yes, and the mischief to be resolved is the murder of tiny to smallish human beings, present from the moment of conception (as every detail of biology supports).

Winter • January 29, 2024 10:05 AM

@bl5q sw5N

Re: biology supports

Nope, in biology, individuals exist from the moment of parting, not from the moment of conception. You do not kill a chicken when you eat an egg.

Also, a piece of tissue that cannot exist independently is called an organ.

bl5q sw5N • January 29, 2024 12:04 PM

@ Winter

individuals exist from the moment of parting, not from the moment of conception. … tissue that cannot exist independently is called an organ

These are just equivocations that are regularly used to defend against the unpleasant truths of biology. Nobody familiar with biology, not even you, really thinks your characterizations are valid.

It’s why the pro-aborts dropped this nonsense as a line of argument and now are fine with acknowledging humanity from conception and simply say if it’s not wanted it can be killed even after “parting” i.e. birth.

Winter • January 29, 2024 1:18 PM

@

Nobody familiar with biology, not even you, really thinks your characterizations are valid.

They almost all do.

Animals abort embryos and foetuses whenever they don’t suit the mother. This includes humans, as most “conceived” eggs are spontaneously “lost” in humans [1]. Animals regularly kill their offspring when they don’t suit them.

Killing newborns was and is common practice in human non-christian societies. Even US Evangelical Christians have no problem with non-evangelican children dying after they are born.

An egg is not a chicken, an embryo not a person.

[1] As they say, God is the biggest 5brtinist.

Winter • January 29, 2024 5:40 PM

PS
@bl5q sw5N

We are concerned with deliberate killing, not failures of nature and accidents.

These are neither failures of nature nor accidents.

Actually, female animals, humans included, have specific physiological processes to remove unsuitable embryos and fetuses. God, or evolution, has build this into women.

Many animals that care for their young actively kill those that they cannot, or do not want to, care for. Others simply kill those young fathered by another male, eg, lions or gorilla’s.

Clive Robinson • January 29, 2024 6:00 PM

@ bl5q sw5N, Winter,

Re :

“the mischief to be resolved is the murder of tiny to smallish human beings, present from the moment of conception”

We’ve been through this before.

1, It’s not a “human” it’s a parasite.

2, It’s not being “murdered”.

3, It’s certainly not viable at conception.

4, It’s incapable of independent living for months or years after being born.

Like it or not those are the facts the use of overly emotive words does not change things.

Over the Christmas to New Year period in Skegness England a very real and heart rendering tragedy happened, that certainly upset me as a father who is himself in ill health.

A small boy around two years old died of dehydration and potentially malnutrition. He was found curled up at his dead fathers feet.

His father, who was sixty and not a well man died of what is said to be a heart attack. He was by all accounts a good man who was overjoyed to be a father and no word has been said against him that I’m aware of.

The boy could not survive without the assistance of someone older than himself and thus died very very tragically in circumstances I can not imagine and I’m reasonably certain nor can many others.

Were both deaths avoidable, the answer is probably yes to both of them. In both cases help was not available in time.

Why help was not available is simple in one case and more complex in the other.

Untimely death is realy not that common in the UK what was almost certainly fatal as it was in both my parents case would probably not be so today.

The death of children in the UK outside of accident and cancer is very rare, and often makes front page news because of it’s rarity.

In the US it’s a lot less rare for various reasons but even so would probably make the main stream media.

To say the things you have is to be frank, not just wrong but greviously so. We pretend that all is wonderfull in the world, others thank some invented entity for which no actual evidence exists just some blind faith.

Nature is said to be “savage in tooth and claw” but the reality is it’s not, it’s mostly simple happenstance and man’s inability to predict, and act knowingly to prevent it. All the miricals people are so thankfull for are simply chance, and the progression of mankind as a social being that accrues knowledge that can change the outcome of happenstance.

Take a look at the US mother and baby mortality figures, compared to most other Western Nations they are a scandle… Nearly all are avoidable, but are not due to “love of the dollar”.

If you want to make accusations of murder go make them against the blatant behaviours of those who finance the US medical system. That results in a sustem that is to be honest bad enough compared to other nations to be considered not just corrupt but criminally so and even worse in some respects to even third world nations, that have little or no choice but to follow “natures way”.

Fobbing the abuse in the US system off on “the hand of god” or equivalent is without doubt covering up corporate abuse to and beyond the point of deliberate profitering from actively chosing to kill people.

Remember “If you are to cast stones” try and be sure you throw them where they will do the most good. After all “bang for the buck” is the American way and the mortality figures show this most alarmingly.

bl5q sw5N • January 29, 2024 10:38 PM

@ Winter

You are the one claiming biologists could decide this question
…
But the question is indeed a religious one

The question of the humanity of the embryo is a purely natural one, to be answered by the appropriate natural sciences. It’s not a religious question (even though religions may express a position, the appropriate category is natural science, i.e. reason.)

Once nature is sufficiently understood, the moral and ethical constraints that apply can be considered. Where the human is concerned, there are many constraints.

Thus all your remarks about the “movement to deny women the control over their own body” are irrelevant. And in fact, they are just sophistry, an attempt to distract thought from the real issue at stake. We all have control over our own body, but this control is limited ethically, not absolute.

These are neither failures of nature nor accidents.

Actually, they are. Nature is “always or for the most part”. When there is a deviation from the “always” or what is the typical natural case, somewhere in the layers of material mediation a gap or intrusion has occurred and the overall natural end is not reached. Hence, e.g. miscarriages.

And whatever some animals may do can only be related to what humans do if the distinct properties of the human are kept in view.

bl5q sw5N • January 29, 2024 11:06 PM

@ Clive Robinson

Like it or not those are the facts

No they are not “facts”. They are sophistic distortions of the facts.

I’m not making accusations, just trying to clarify a question so one can be aware of what is actually involved.

Regarding what is a worthwhile medical issue, abortion has killed well over 70 million human beings since that defective 1973 court decision. Roughy comparable to the population of the UK. That’s probably justifies some concern for the issue, even in view of the inadequacies of the US health system.

Clive Robinson • January 30, 2024 1:44 AM

@ bl5q sw5N, Winter,

“The question of the humanity of the embryo is a purely natural one, to be answered by the appropriate natural sciences. It’s not a religious question”

An embryo has no “humanity” at conception as far as the natural sciences are concerned.

It’s Just a ball of dividing cells that does not possess a brain or neural pathways.

Even later a lot later, after being born it still has not developed the state of humanity and may never do so. Because it does not start to have the psychological traits of “humanity” untill around the age of six or so.

Merrium-Webster definition,

“Humanity is the quality or state of being human, joined together by common humanity, or the totality of human beings. It can also refer to the branches of learning that study human culture and concerns.”

In short “Humanity” is “cultural” and is a “mental state of being” in those capable of nurturin offspring independently.

That is, “humanity’ is, a “cultural state” of mind from society “that may be developed” over time not a “physical state”. Importantly it requires having morals and ethics and a sense of right and wrong with respect to others. It’s why we can quite rightly say of some humans “they have no humanity”.

Those mental traits are learned by being pary of society and generally do not start comeing through untill about age seven, if they do at all.

“No they are not “facts”. They are sophistic distortions of the facts.”

My four points even though you do not like it, are factually correct.

As I previously pointed out,

“Like it or not those are the facts the use of overly emotive words does not change things.”

Stop using “overly emotive words” that are due to your state of emotion / point of view and are clearly “observer bias” that is clouding your thinking with the wishy-washy “all gods creatures” of quasi-religious sophistry and you can then start to reason logically and correctly. And thereby understand that YOU are applying YOUR cultural mores, morals, and ethics YOU learned from the “human society” you were raised in, that formed YOUR “humanity” and cultural identity.

The mores, morald and ethics are not inate YOU are applying those you learned to a being that does not possess them. And won’t posses them untill reaching a mental state where they start being capable of nurturing offspring of their own that they can raise to the same independent mental state.

The so called “Love of God” does not exist it is actually “a mutual dependence” as part of a community by which, untill recent times most benifited from.

Get to understand the implication of,

“Individual Rights v Societal Responsibility”.

Winter • January 30, 2024 2:04 AM

@bl5q sw5N

The question of the humanity of the embryo is a purely natural one, to be answered by the appropriate natural sciences.

Science only handles things that are observable or measurable. You cannot observe ethical categories like “personhood” and “humanity”. Biology does not and cannot identify “personhood” or “humanity”.

Medical science can tell you when a foetus can survive outside the womb and biology can tell you how it gets there. Neither can tell you the moment the eternal soul descents in the embryo.

We all have control over our own body, but this control is limited ethically, not absolute.

Indeed, the limitations on a person’s control over their bodies are purely ethical, or better, religious. There is no “science” that supports these limitations. And it is clear why women are the subject of more control, Might is Right.

Nature is “always or for the most part”. When there is a deviation from the “always” or what is the typical natural case, somewhere in the layers of material mediation a gap or intrusion has occurred and the overall natural end is not reached.

You are right, but this goes counter to your own argument.

For example, Down’s syndrome is a genetic condition that is caused by an extra copy of a chromosome, #21. This extra copy originates in the father. But the probability of having a child with this condition increased with the age of the mother.

The reason more babies with Down’s syndrome are born in older women is that the system in the mother that recognizes the condition and initiates the rejection of the embryo becomes less effective with age.

So, the womb is made to reject unsuitable embryos, but Nature is not perfect and this can fail.

In all of this “Nature” does not care about ethics, we humans do. So it is pointless to try to base your ethics on Nature.

And whatever some animals may do can only be related to what humans do if the distinct properties of the human are kept in view.

Indeed, biology is not ethics. But at the heart of your argument is that the moment of personhood is given by biology. However, that is an ethical, or better, religious question, not a scientific one. So, you argue here that biology is ethics when it would suit you.

Winter • January 30, 2024 2:49 AM

@bl5q sw5N

Regarding what is a worthwhile medical issue, abortion has killed well over 70 million human beings since that defective 1973 court decision.

In the words of Abraham Lincoln:
How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.

Clive Robinson • January 30, 2024 4:59 AM

@bl5q sw5N

“Regarding what is a worthwhile medical issue, abortion has killed well over 70 million human beings since that defective 1973 court decision.”

First off the Court decision, was not in your emotive words “defective”.

Secondly of those 70million were disabled? Or the product of Rape? Or even Insest?

What would have been the cost on forcing them into society?

Are you going to pay for the lifetime commitment on a Downs Syndrome Child?

Are you even aware of the implications of a Downs syndrom child grown to adulthood with parents frail with age getting hurt and killed by that child?

How do you punish that child?

Can society aford the costs which you wish to force onto it?

Something you realy should think about because it is in quite a few cases “an unnatural cost on society” which surprise surpries when the cost fell onto the Church they promptly found ways to get rid of the cost or become extrodinarily abusive both physically and mentally. To this day various reglious organisations are fighting every which way they can to not just keep it hidden from sight but not pay in anyway for the harms they so wantonly commited and some of them actively reveled in…

But also don’t forget the churches very active participation in eugenics and forced steralization not just of young women but children.

Abuse is abuse and this anti-abortion rhetoric is about bringing back abuse and effectively enslavement and execution.

Winter • January 30, 2024 5:10 AM

@Clive

Abuse is abuse and this anti-abortion rhetoric is about bringing back abuse and effectively enslavement and execution.

They need more boys to feed the canons. No boys, no wars to win.

Also, it is the staunchest anti-abortion states that are removing the child labour law protection. All those “extra” kids will be put to work in, eg, slaughter houses.

‘https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/09/nebraska-slaughterhouse-children-working-photos-labor-department

‘https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/5/3/23702464/child-labor-laws-youth-migrants-work-shortage

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