Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • February 24, 2024 8:00 AM

@ Winter, bone zone,

Re : History correction and Gemini

“Nice to see that this qualification is not reserved anymore for “minorities “, but can now be used for every cultural movement in society.”

It’s kind of what I expected and predicted would happen. See my original posting,

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/new-image-video-prompt-injection-attacks.html/#comment-432736

Only not as fast as it happened.

I think that knowing the identity of the news outlet for the “snow flakes” and their editorial policy is as far as the rules of this blog will let me go in making comment 😉

Clive Robinson • February 24, 2024 8:47 AM

@ emily’s post,

In my limited experience Squid are more likely to hunger for the soft squidgy stuff around the hard crispy shell of an M&M 😉

But as the saying has it, “There’s always an exception…”

As for the taking of photographs / video by vending machines what does it actually cost to “fit the camera” especially when you can by them “ready to go” for Raspberry Pi projects for less than $15USD?

Now compare that to “stock loss” from vending machine “shakers” who see as their entitlement “the drop of a can” or similar for a little expended muscle power…

But the question arises, as the collection of such video / photographs has “alleged” real value to marketing people who put their hands in their pocket and pay for such information… Why would a supplier of vending machines not want to take the money?

Clive Robinson • February 25, 2024 7:13 AM

@ lurker, ALL,

Re : Is it firing blanks and if not in what direction.

“the current Active Region of interest AR3590 is half as big in surface area as the one that Carrington saw”

It’s something I’m mindful of.

The Carrington event of 1859 mostly went unnoticed at the time[1] as “long wires in the air” of a mile or more were not just very uncommon but did not in any way effect the lives of over 99.9% of the population. And the very few long wires in the air at the time mostly ended in fairly robust electro-mechanical devices and water jar primary cell batteries.

Today much of the first world outside of Europe is like a bunch of Xmas / fairy lights chucked across a hedge. Unfortunately the lamps have been replaced with ultra sensitive microchips and similar that are nowhere near as robust as electromechanical devices.

Part of what I do is explain to modern designers how to EmSec proof equipment and why even moderate amounts of RF can cause no end of trouble (generally less than 100Watts and you can be a little sloppy, at 1000Watts or more things melt and catch fire as well as severely burning people in the blink of an eye and so a 6-Sigma quality approach is not unreasonable).

Trying to explain why CME and EMP effects are very qualitively different and need different approaches can be like pushing rocks up hill with your nose[2]…

Any way before we get a Carrington event three things have to happen,

1, The AR needs to do more than flare, it needs to actively kick out a “metric 5hit ton” of matter not to dissimilar in mass to a small planet.

2, Some part of that mass needs to be in Earths direction.

3, The duration needs to be long enough to cause harm.

The R3 effect we had the day AT&T dropped the ball was from an X-Class flare and produced effects upto 14GHz which is very rare (and screwed up many astronomical observations accordingly). But there was no mass heading our way. Like firing blanks it was all noise and thankfully no kinetics.

We may not be as lucky with the next few ARs we could easily get a CME of Carrington proportions that could take out primary power grid infrastructure and anything attached to wires not below ground. As for EMP arrestors they could easily end up as “toast” with a decent CME.

[1] The Carrington event was an epoch in history where we first had the ability to see what a strike from a CME can do to technology. CME’s happen all the time and there would have been thousands before 1859. They have a cycle that is not to dissimilar to the 11year Solar cycle, but most of them miss us. Which is why they tend to hit earth about every 10-15 solar cycle durations. It your fingers are working you will realise we are “overdue” a CME event, and most experts give you a hollow laugh if you ask “Are we ready?” The Americas in particular are particularly vulnerable as are those nations that have been playing the rapid technological catch up game such as much of Asia… When a CME of significant strength does hit, much of our modern world will stop. The result will likely follow the rule of threes as 100% of the people in the First World are entirely dependent on “grid power” in one way or another, even if they have “back-up”. Be it for communications, primary services, food storage and waste removal, health care etc even the trucking of oil/petrol will all become detrimentally effected. Some who have done modeling say 85-95% of the population dead in the three to twelve month period…

[2] To see why I’m not going to describe it as it would require a lot of strain on my typing pinky, instead watch,

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XQwv02RP8F4

Note it’s a very brief intro, and he does not go into protection devices and their energy dissipation issues. Nor does he talk about the different types of nukes that can be used. We don’t hear much about “neutron” devices though we know Russia was playing around quite recently with a “Pluto” device which is in effect a hypersonic ram jet missile using an unshielded very dirty nuclear reactor that spews out neutrons in very high quantities that can be flown around for weeks or months. The original US Pluto project can be read about at,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto

Clive Robinson • February 25, 2024 6:26 PM

@ Moderator,

With removing @echo’s nonsense and my reply pointing out just how offensive her nonsense was…

You have left it open for her further vituperation as seen above. But this time she tries harder to hide her true self, pretending she was joking or other which she was clearly not.

But if you had left them undeleted others would have know her base behaviours and how false her LGBTQ+ etc pretences are.

As she had stupidly come through clearly for all to see as a faux-personality putting up a pretense of some person of import to hide her continuing calumny.

I suggest you consider restoring the two comments for the record.

Failing that you have other options that you have used in the past.

But one thing is clear beyond all doubt she is not going to stop her behaviours and is not limiting herself to just one individual any longer and increasing her range of targets. She has further indicated a few days back she is going to very disruptively fill this blog with 60 Pages of her “put her self in the hero” Walter Mitty style notes / comments. Which based on what she has posted so far are of little relevance as they involve arcane UK Politics and are of the sort you specifically prohibited in the past.

Clive Robinson • February 26, 2024 6:11 AM

@ Jelo 117, ALL

Re : Moving down the nano hole.

“What makes one think ?”

If you look back on this blog you will see that it’s been an area of interest not just to me but some others.

I first became worried when in the UK Tony Blair PM set up “The number ten Nudge Unit”. At first it sounded like just general populace propaganda unit, kind of like PR by Marketing.

Not long after there was a “Warning Sign Post”[1] with the,

“Today is a good day to release bad news”

Email scandal. And a “head rolled” all be it briefly, but it revealed a mindset that was becoming more prevalent to the point of ubiquity in certain government circles.

Later we were to find out about Cambridge Analytica / Facebook.

It’s been postulated that Donald Trump’s use of social media to become US President was contrary to the “doing it on the cheap” view a fairly considered and evaluated action based on the then known neuroscience. However so far nobody has publicly shown a link from researchers to Donald Trump or his team (except for a tentative “maybe through the Mercers” and their Russian operation for deniability).

The point is if people have been alert they would have picked up on it as the “Second Signpost”.

But moving on to the more technical side, directed energy weapons that act on the brain have been known for some time. What has only become clear in more recent times is “small insults accumulate invisibly in the brain”. It’s something the US NFL had to learn the hard way and if followed logically would be the death of US football and other contact sports. Have a look at what is called “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy”(CTE) the damage it does to the brain has not been diagnosable with medical imaging except in autopsy tests. However,

‘https://www.bumc.bu.edu/camed/2023/02/06/researchers-find-cte-in-345-of-376-former-nfl-players-studied/

Suggests there is no smoke without fire, which will be of little comfort to those who have “Havana Syndrome” which was mentioned in the talk. However evolution does have something to say on the matter with the likes of woodpeckers having very distinct protective structures for the brain that humans lack.

But if you want to see a “first signpost” for CTE look up “Miners white finger” and similar,

‘https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/jan/23/2

It goes back to atleast the 1960’s.

But now consider diabetic neuropathy, a simple molecule we call sugar can kill the peripheral nervous system. A question I’ve not had answered when I asked some years ago was ‘Why does it shows up in the “Peripheral Nervous System”(PNS) but not the “Central Nervous System”(CNS)?’

I suspect you might suspect from now knowing of CTE that it’s a ‘diagnostic issue’ because the signs and symptoms are not obvious in the same way. That is physical sensation degradation of the PNS can be measured “with a feather and a pin”, but how do you measure small behavioural changes in the CNS?

But on issues mentioned, one to keep your eye on for the future is what we are begining to see with nano plastic particulates and their build up in the body,

‘https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/are-plastic-particles-in-bottled-water-harmful-to-health

Think first how that is potentially a health care crisis in the making due to neo-con mantras making tap water increasingly seen as “unsafe” so people now increasingly drink bottled.

Now consider how you could weaponise it?

The simple addition of a metal to the nano particle could have some really devastating neurological effects, because nano particles are known to accumulate in lipids, and the insulation around neurons is lipid based. Thus potentially having similar effects to epilepsy.

One thing that was not mentioned was DNA tagging pathogens. It’s a ScFi idea going back a long way. The idea is that something unique in your DNA etc can be used to trigger or more likely amplify the effect of a pathogen thus only attack you or those very genetically close to you.

Whilst it sounds beyond the realms of possibility is it?

The answer is no, as we know from viral pathogens that kill one species yet have little or no effect on other species. C19 was in effect living proof of this for everyone to see in how a pathogen could jump into other species that then became “reservoir species” as they were minimally effected. The only open question as it were is just how selective can you make it?

Which also brings up another question. Studies on genetic twins separated at birth show that even though brought up in different environments their basic life patterns especially sociologically are very similar. It’s caused quite a bit of debate in the “nature v nurture” domain of enquiry. In part because it feels like “predeterminism” or at best free will is constrained. Some have leapt on it as an excuse for “criminal family born” and similar.

Let us suppose for a moment it were true, and “right wing thinking” has a genetically identifiable basis. Imagine making a pathogen that is debilitating but not lethal with a slow recovery time that is amplified in those people. What would happen if you released it a few days or so prior to an election?

Would it suprise you to find out that research money is available for genetically sensitive pathogen research?

[1] There is a trueisum of,

“There are three signposts to disaster”

With the the three signposts being,

1, The first only visible with hindsight.
2, The second visible to those who have considered foresight.
3, The third visible to all who can think.

With the first being the start of the journey down the slippery slope. The second being the tipping point or start of the snowball roll. With the third in effect being the thunder of hooves, or roar of the avalanche, that as my father made clear to me a little before I became a teen, is something telling you “now is a good time to be somewhere else whilst you still can”. He also made clear if you see a second signpost you have two options try and stop the inevitable, or walk away calmly to safer ground taking those you value with you.

Clive Robinson • February 26, 2024 1:30 PM

@ fib,

Turning the internet of for a week would prove interesting…

Obama when POTUS had the idea –or an advisor did– of a big off button for times of “National Emergency” or for “National Security”.

Then it was pointed out that,

1, APT could put payloads into US computers that would be time delay or similar triggered[1].

2, The US economy had largely become deindustrialized and economic activity had become service sector and information sector. Both of which needed the Internet.

3, Due to “shareholder value” nearly all primary infrastructure was dependent on the Internet.

In short most of North America would become like a patient in ICU on life support within three days and toes up within six. Which is I guess why we’ve not really heard about it for a decade.

“Hope you’re well.”

Well as my father used to say

“I’ve got either a nervous twitch or a heartbeat, so that’s a start ;-)”

But speaking of “toes up” for the past year I’ve been greatly hindered by problems with my feet. So after some persuading by me the medical profession went a little medieval on me… And a delightful lady surgeon has removed the badly in growing toe nails that kept getting infected. So I’m what they politely call “mobility challenged”. But on the plus side my feet are nolonger the size/shape of soccer balls so there’s definitely an improvement B-)

But I still can not get shoes on, I can get into UK size 16 sandal s of the sort we used to call “jesus boots” and the hospital has given me some “grandpa boots” that are basically soft cloth sides with velcro to hold them over. But the weather has been wet, followed by wet and windy, followed by stormy etc with the common feature being to wet to go outside in as it would get through the dressings.

Plus it’s way too cold to wear shorts outside, as I can’t wear long trousers yet ={

I had to go “get the dressings changed” last week at my Drs and the looks I was getting from the people in the waiting room was kind of like they thought I was some mad Aussie Digger on his way to the beach…

But I’m told it’ll be another three to six weeks. So maybe out and about for Mothers Day or Easter.

[1] A time delayed or more correctly time triggered unless inhibited payload would be quite devastating. Imagine if you can 1/3rd of servers in the US spewing attacks out onto the US segments of the Internet…

Actually you don’t have to the Bob Morris Worm multiplied by the largest so far known amplifying DDoS attack should give a rough idea.

Clive Robinson • February 26, 2024 10:17 PM

@ fib,

Re : North v South.

“Well, South America likewise. As you know it will happen with 100% certainty. It could be now, or in the next solar max, or in the next, or even a black swan in between. A medium(!) probability event with a massive impact, i.e., an unacceptable risk. “

I suspect the toll on the population as a % will actually be less in South America than North America.

Without being nasty, for various reasons South America was late to the party of being “hooked on electricity”. Basically technology has evolved way faster than their societal changes.

Back in the 1930’s in North America a good % of the population were still living without electricity in their homes outside of “Cities” and some newer suburbs. Thirty years later North America from Mexico to the Arctic circle had become electricity dependent not just for lighting but increasingly to pump heat around. For cooking, food preservation and habitué environment (AC, Air and Water heating). This was all the ways from city to what some would call “rural cabins”. WWII had brought a need for people to listen to the radio and thus if you needed the power to run thermionic tube/valves the extra for what even by todays standards are very high wattage light bulbs made life not just significantly easier, it also made it significantly safer and oh so much more convenient. As kerosene lamps and similar have a very high incidence of starting fires, in homes as do candles they also both require high maintenance and a need to get oil or wax, wicks etc. The danger was in part because their low light output and high heat, ment low down use, as well as getting continuously moved. Thus a very high incidence of being accidently knocked against or curtains and similar blown against.

In the 1980’s much of South America was and still is not using mains electricity. Of interest is modern low power LED lights and low power electronics means many are unlikely to want to go to the expense of mains electricity even if it was available.

In some ways the North and South of America have taken two different technological evolutionary paths. Whilst the North has become dependent to a very high degree to high power electrical usage. South America has domestically not done so in a sufficiently notable percentage of the population. Thus a big chunk of South America is “already prepared” and the loss of mains power will as they don’t have it won’t effect them if there is a significant CME hit and Carrington style event.

As for CME’s they come in all ranges if you look it up Quebec got hit mid winter back in March 1989, almost exactly 35 years ago,

https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2021/03/12/the-great-quebec-blackout/

By what was a one in thirty to fifty year expected event.

I remember the event not because it caused me any problem in England, but because it’s the only time I’ve seen auroras in England bright enough to be visible over suburban street lighting.

From what I remember Europe apart from pretty lights was mostly unaffected. In part because many power cables are sub surface, in part because the energy from the CME “heats the soil” rather than melts the towers and cables, but also the runs of cables in the air were shorter and many were not directionally positioned to get very large unidirectional flux. Also the networks had way more breaks in terms of grid to grid isolation.

When a CME hits the effect is a very long drawn out slow rise, of what is nearly “Direct Current”(DC) as opposed to 50/60Hz low frequency “Alternating Current”(AC), it’s called an “E3” characteristic event. This tends to kill certain transformer configurations but not others when multiple phases are involved. Especially when cables in the air are not just in a balanced configuration but also a twisted configuration (they all float up together so there is no differential except to ground).

Put overly simply, for DC current to flow you need a closed circuit. For a CME the circuit is from the overhead cables through the neutral connection to ground. If the cables are balanced phases there is no need for an actual neutral or to have it go to ground (but massively high voltages can cause it to arc-over). Thus fitting segment splitting capacitors and “dump circuits” to keep the voltage tolerable can keep overheads delivering AC Mains Power whilst keeping the DC and low frequency Voltage Standing Waves from reflections under control. Such equipment is not cheap and what are still called “oil filled” capacitors and inductors are very much not environmentally friendly.

Likewise “Plain Old Telephone Service”(POTS) overhead telephone cables in rural areas can use a circuit not unlike a pair of back to back “2wire to 4wire” hybrids and high impedance phantom signalling.

Modern trunk phone circuits use “optical fiber” however they are steal wire braid covered to protect against mechanical damage. This braid is like metal conduit, an effective electrical conductor and is thus susceptible. Worse as with sub-sea cables the optical amplifiers in some long cables are fed with a “Series DC supply” that can be up in the Kilovolt range as this minimises I^2R losses.

I won’t talk about overhead power for trains and trams as it’s very complicated for other reasons.

And before someone puts both feet in yes I can explain in very great detail, but it would take up a whole bunch of column inches.

Clive Robinson • February 27, 2024 5:39 AM

@ Spacelifeform, ALL,

Re : AWS goofing again.

First it’s been a while I hope you are well and as content as can be expected these days?

I started reading through the article you linked to and thought,

“WTF am I reading this right?”

So I went to the link of the original exploit,

https://tracebit.com/blog/2024/02/finding-aws-account-id-of-any-s3-bucket/

And yup it looked like I was.

What became clear was that neither writer had ever picked a mechanical combination lock, or assumed their readers had not[1].

Because picking such a lock as that shown at the top right of every page of this blog is exactly the same process and very fast (it also works on luggage/briefcase locks as easily and is just as fast as two locks make no difference as the attack speed is proportional to the number of wheels not the myriad individual combinations).

When you pick such a lock you rely on the “manufacturing defect” in the lock to “feel” an individual wheel “is in” the right setting.

Put simply if you pull on the lock it puts pressure on just one of the wheels that “binds” up a little and becomes stiff to turn. As you turn it when it stops binding as much you have found the right setting for that wheel. So you then find the next wheel that is more bound than the others and rotate it till it unbinds at it’s correct setting. Repeat for all the wheels which is six in the above and the hasp is now open. With a little practice you can do this almost as fast as the lock owner could turn the wheels to the correct setting.

So you go from trying a million combinations that six numeric wheels give you to just six “feel the wheel in” operations…

The fact no one at AWS pulled up the fact that using a wild card would allow a “feel the wheel in” attack actually astounds me to a level that few can probably understand.

It really is a very basic type of attack as it works on both “pin and tumbler” key rim locks where you “rake the pins” and on mortice locks where you “profile the key” leaver by leaver (also warded locks but these are rare these days except in very cheap padlocks).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever_tumbler_lock

Really the only difficulty behind these attacks is finding the software equivalent of a “bind” or “feel” test.

[1] Prof Matt Blaze set up a lock picking lab so all his students would learn tactilely how basic attacks from the physical domain transfer into the information domain all to easily. As there has been centuries of lock picking and thwarting going on. It’s something a curious child can learn by themselves, and I was quite proficient long before I was in my double digits.

Clive Robinson • February 27, 2024 7:29 AM

@ ALL,

It would appear that some are not up on their “new speak slang” (it’s a “cant” much like “cockney rhyming slang).

Thus “Duck waddle” is a polite euphemism to “Quack Twaddle”.

With “Quack Twaddle” meaning,

1, a Quack : some one who is generally a “no nothing” not the professional the try to appear, selling “snake oil”. In short a Charlatan.

2, Twaddle an old English word used for “speaking nonsense or falsely”

See,

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/quack

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/charlatan

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twaddle

The fact some one thinks it’s funny, then uses it incorrectly, kind of proves a point.

Clive Robinson • February 27, 2024 1:09 PM

@ JonKnowsNothing, fib, lurker,

This takes me back more than a decade and a half ago,

https://newatlas.com/solar-pebble-kerosene-dependence/14748/

If you read the first bit you can see why I’m twitchy about oil lamps. Not only can they burn you to death, they can slowly poison you and give you a premature and painful death from cancer.

It’s not known how many die a year from their use, but some think it’s more than die on the street from or in vehicles in the same locality.

It’s why I and a friend who is sadly nolonger with us started a solar light project. However we found that the rechargable batteries then economically available were almost as fatal unless properly disposed of, and really were only good for a year so the disposal rate would be high thus the probability of environmental contamination likewise high.

We revisited the idea using more modern LiPo batteries and UV-C LEDs as part of a PPE light weight respirator for the medical profession during C19. We got to the point of prototype manufacture when unfortunately he suffered a fatal accident and that put paid to the project.

He might well have been seen as a bit of an oddball and daredevil by quite a few but his heart was in the right place and his commitment to the projects he got involved with unquestionable. He is missed by his friends but in many ways he really did change the world and for the better for a lot of people who don’t know of him.

Clive Robinson • February 27, 2024 7:50 PM

@ JonKnowsKnothing, fib, lurker, ALL,

Re : Death rate

“more than 2,000 unhoused people died in LA in 2023
LA County now has more than 75,500 unhoused people”

Let me think 75,500 with 2000 die each year that’s 1 in 37.750 or around 2.65% death rate.

That is a very serious problem.

I know some of that population has come from other parts of the US attracted by various State policies, thus they tend to be more fragile than other citizens.

But even so dealing with 40 near anonymous deaths a week on the street carries with it a very large administrative burden, especially as a fair number will not be “natural deaths”.

“People in their 70s are unable to afford housing after retirement…”

One of the reasons for “owning a home” was to stop this happening and if I remember correctly annual land tax to the city/state was based on the sale or transfer value, so the longer you owned effectively the less you paid. Not sure how it’s calculated on rentals.

As for retirement and pension the way it’s done in the US has always mystified me as it’s like US healthcare an “unfair tax” on those at the bottom end of the socioeconomic ladder.

Clive Robinson • February 28, 2024 4:26 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing, fib, lurker, ALL,

Re : Only for the upper floor.

“A solar tube light works the same was as the solar bottle but without the liquid to do the refraction.”

There are a couple of issues with them that as I’ve seen can be very negatively impactful in temperate and higher latitude regions.

Firstly is the issue of cross sectional area. With passive systems not using water balls the level of light that goes down into the building is directly related to the cross sectional area of the light tube / waveguide and the angle from which it is irradiated. Importantly the light should be “direct sun light” not defuse light through clouds.

The UK is not really known for cloudless days and it does snow here as well as rain quite heavily. Which is something the sales and marketing people don’t tell you when they sell “green solutions” which is one reason going green has a bad reputation in the UK.

Secondly is loss both light loss due to scattering, absorption and other effects the light lost per meter of tube is quite high. And also they are thermal night mares if not insulated correctly which can add two feet to the diameter of the tube unless you add a vacuum cell at the top which gives additional light loss.

I’ve mentioned a friend yesterday that had a factory located south of London. With his engineering lab within, but it was not on the top floor but one floor down. Even though relatively small it needed two tubes/pipes to give less than adequate light on all but a few hours in high summer. The tubes went through the floor above and in effect took up the same floor area as four desks would have and caused condensation and rain leak issues. If it snowed or rained then it was effectively “lights out”. And LED lights at the time were not really upto giving the sort of light that would not strain the eyes. Thus it ended up having a negative impact on the environment and people working in his lab. Because it ended up being the sort of gloom you get in meeting rooms when an OHP is in use.

Clive Robinson • February 28, 2024 1:08 PM

@ echo,

“I’m still waiting for you to apologise for slagging off coders which is the the cause of your throwing a snot. Since facts don’t match the reality in your head are you going to apologise for your LGBT comment?”

Neither are true except in your Walter Mitty mind.

Oh others it appears are getting fed up with all your nonsense and have reasonably suggested you go take your Politics etc opinions elsewhere… Maybe you should setup your own blog or I guess you could try X nee Twitter or Reddit. There’s always Discord or Mastodon.

@ Moderator,

Remember @echo did say “sixty pages” of links etc the other day and certainly appears to be “saturation bombing” the blog and thereby harming it for others.

Note others have noted and objected to @echo’s rather sad fixation on me and repeated failings to provoke more than rejections of her fixation behaviour and observations on how her claims do not match her statements (or as far as can be told even her own earlier comments…).

She clearly has no intention to stop and the blog and it’s host will suffer reputationally as a result.

I’ve been told by other observers that she is in effect “Trophie Scalp Hunting” to try and show “what a hero she is” in her mind and thus go crowing to anyone who will listen (probably very few indeed).

Thus the question is if she does not claim my scalp even with false allegations who will she turn on next?

Clive Robinson • February 28, 2024 4:52 PM

@ Moderator, please do not remove this or @echo’s comment which it is a critique of. Because others need to be aware for their safety / well being and protection of reputation

@ echo,

You really should stop your nonsense.

I said software developers and coders should not call themselves engineers as in the most cases they followed artisanal not engineering practices and amongst other technical reasons demonstrated this with “design patterns” an artisanal guild / trade “secret” culture going back oh about as long as we’ve had the wheel.

The fact that,

“I’m still waiting for you to apologise for slagging off coders which is the the cause of your throwing a snot.”

Is patently not true, it was you that got the snot on… as evidenced, I really don’t know how many times now, but here again incrementing the count. It is clearly you not me that has the snot and it is a problem for you to try and explain without false accusations.

But with regard,

“There was a discussion which you refused to participate in. Other people did agree but let it go.”

And I ask,

“What legal standing do these others hold?”

Because you’ve certainly demonstrated you have no knowledge of the law with respect to this. Despite you claims about belittling and embarrassing lawyers/barristers in your Boots low cost lipstick and a tight dress.

For your information and developers / coders as well.

“In increasing numbers of places around the world it is an offence that carries both fines, property loss, and in some cases incarceration to call yourself an engineer unless you have been registered as an ‘Engineer’ in that jurisdiction.”

It’s not just by qualification and registration but as with other formal professions by registering with a legislatively approved body and having recognised and verified professional standing. Which I suspect you and most developers / coders can not show at all. In the UK the “British Computer Society”(BCS) were upto trying to get this back in the 1990’s if not earlier, likewise the IEE. Thankfully they failed for various reasons, and you can read down to why I thought their failure back then, and still think today it was a good thing they failed.

And CS and similar degrees they are often not sufficient as they don’t in the most part have the required relevant “Professionalism” education and examination. Which means you have to get extended standing with the Required Professional body and that takes quite some time as a “grunt worker” maybe ten years and being 35 or older…

So good luck on explaining your way out of that.

Why do I know this, well it goes back to my professional work encouraging women into STEM. I’m against Professional bodies with legal powers of distraint over who can and can not “practice professionally” because all to often it is a discrimination / toe the party line process, and as I know all to well women get discriminated against. Those “glass ceilings” appear just as they do in Law, Medicine, and Accounting oh and the worst offender of the lot religion.

So we get on to this gem of yours,

“I just find you perfectly insufferable not just for your attitude but your deliberate ignorance and misinforming people.

Right, who is misinforming whom here yet again?

I’ll make it easy and say “not me”.

If you expect me to apologise for what is both technically and legally true then you have your head screwed on the wrong way.

With regards,

“You also accused me of making stuff up about my LGBT credentials.”

I actually pointed out that what you were saying was not self consistent with other things you had said and thus was questionable.

Now if you don’t like that then stop making stuff up as you clearly are here again.

As for,

“I’m not posting my personal life on the internet”

You’ve already done way to much of that for most to stomach already. A point I made the other day about what people could assume from your own words about lipsticks and clothing you wear…

You should listen when people are trying to tell ever so gently that you are setting entirely the wrong impression of yourself. What am I supposed to say “Oi Hussy” or worse?

Talking about make me laugh,

“none of the material is anything you are expert in.
“

There you go making assumptions for the how oftenth time over how many years now?

The fact I don’t talk about many many things others regard me as expert in on this blog is simply because it’s mostly not relevant to the blog or I have duties of non disclosure at all sorts of levels from NDA to OSA.

But do you want me explaining why you do a scarf joint in a particular way? How about the correct ratios of resin to hardener at what temperature for GRP and when to use woven roving or chop strand mat, or paper or glass rope? How about the when and how of charging LiPo batteries and why you should not leave EV’s out charging on winter nights? How about how to cure and smoke meats cheeses and vegetables? What about the finer points of charcuterie and offal? The list goes on and on. How about how to work out orbital mechanics from a hoop and Pythagoras? All things I’ve not just mentioned here but actually taught people and got them through professional examinations.

And before you make some dumb comment, like “so you think your smart” or some such. I know many people that are a lot smarter than me, but I don’t “name drop them” unless it’s professionally relevant and I don’t mention the personal connection if there is one. It’s called “good etiquette” and it’s part of expected “Professional Behaviour”.

<

blockquote>”How do you think it feels when we see another LGBT child die because of bad actors, or assaults on rights, or being targeted?
”

<

blockquote>

Why “LGBT only? How about pre teen girls pushed into being repeatedly gang raped in Manchester and surrounding areas? Others girls who are not even ten dying because their own mothers or relatives circumcise them with razor blades?

How about the two year old boy who died a horrible death of dehydration and malnutrition over Xmas – New Year, because his proud to be a father had a heart attack and died and those who new the father had high health risks were two busy jollying it up to make the checks they should have been making?

Then how about those young girls and their mothers being deliberately targeted in Gaza that number tens of thousands?

I could go on but these are just some of the things I’ve mentioned discretely in the past on this blog…

Am I to assume you take the Stalin view of one death being a tragedy but greater numbers just being a statistic?

I could keep on ripping just your single message apart, line by line. But then it would become just a “blood sport” for others to stomach, and I’m not cruel like that. Thus I think I’ve made sufficient point for others to see what you are in your own words. Such that in the future they can reference back here and other places… Should you switch your focus onto others as seems probable.

Maybe you should consider the difference between the message and the messenger and how that relates to you?

Clive Robinson • February 28, 2024 6:20 PM

@ Bruce, ALL,

Re : This is new…

The European Parliament revokes Amazon lobbyist passes

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68428536

Whilst the reason might appear minor, the fact is that the European Parliament, is getting sick and tired of Silicon Valley Tech Mega Corps and their ways.

So this maybe the start of a trend that spreads.

Clive Robinson • March 1, 2024 2:20 AM

@ bl5q sw5N, JonKnowsNothing, ALL

Re: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

“This is your guide”

Only upto a point.

As I noted yesterday with the difference between a “two body problem” and “three body problem” in orbital mechanics.

The Sun-Earth orbit is actually not a two body problem because the other large planets in the system move the Sun around and also move each other around.

Technically the result is “chaotic” but “bounded” in range. So the length of the Earth year inherits this as a wobble in the Sun-Earth orbit that can not be predicted. Which in turn causes not just the Earth’s position to have “uncertainty” but also the orbit distance thus time.

The way you try to reduce this is by using an entirely different set of analysis tools. That is you do “harmonic analysis” via Fourier Analysis which allows short term prediction.

Put overly simply you assume an orbit is perfectly circular about a fixed point as a first assumption. Thus it has a frequency that has both magnitude and phase. Thus any error is caused by harmonics of the fundamental and you adjust both the phase and amplitude. As the orbits decay over time you adjust the fundamental frequency by adding in a phase and amplitude offset that is assumed to be “constant in trend” over time.

Usually going as far as the fiftieth harmonic is sufficient for the uses of navigating the planetary positions and thus sufficiently accurate navigation of entities on Earth.

The same sort of calculation is done with the various “Global Positioning System”(GPS) satellites “ephemerides” orbit predictions in very near “Real Time”,

https://igs.org/products/

But with other things like both Space and Terrestrial weather as well as geological activity that effect both the Earth’s position but also the hight of the atmosphere thus drag etc incorporated.

Oh and not forgetting “Relativistic” effects of Einstein’s insights.

Clive Robinson • March 1, 2024 4:51 AM

@ Bruce, JonKnowsNothing, lurker, ALL,

Re : Snake Oil cashing in on Comms Down.

With regards AT&T’s little self inflicted wound and uninformed journalists incorrectly blaming Solar Flares.

Other more insidious types have noted that when Solar Flares are mentioned it’s often associated with “Coronal Mass Ejections”(CME), and CME’s are often associated with “Electro Magnetic Pulse”(EMP). All three as well as lightning are distinctly different phenomenon.

Thus these insidious types jump on a bandwagon to sell their “snake oil”…

Here is one very recent example,

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/DQH1j3dxwkE

Not to put too finer point on it, it’s actually complete and utter BS of the ripest magnitude thus stinks.

To see why consider,

“If an EMP can take out all protected communications systems as they imply, why would unprotected Amateur / Ham radio equipment survive?”

Especially as just ordinary lightning takes out unprotected “Ham Gear” pretty much all the time.

So folks

“Don’t buy into the bovine excreter”