* Posts by John Smith 19

16326 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Now we know why Philae phouled up comet landing

John Smith 19 Gold badge
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Astonishing

It's taken an almighty kicking and they are still going to see if they can get the orbiter working.

IMpressive.

Ex-GCHQ chief: Bulk access to internet comms not same as mass surveillance

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Gimp

Re: Id cards - no thanks! Gimme something worse!

"Walking, talking, browsing ... who, what, when, and where of every 'smart device' owning person in the country at the fingertips of the spooks as and when required."

Correct.

It's the cradle-to-grave "National Identity Register" database beloved of Mr Blair.

TalkTalk boss: 'Customers think we're doing right thing after attack'

John Smith 19 Gold badge
FAIL

Bottom line.

The customers don't care and the city is OK with us so people are buying our shares again.

Why try harder?

Signed

D Harding.

GCHQ director blasts free market, says UK must be 'sovereign cryptographic nation'

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We want you to have encryption, we don't want back doors, but we do want access?

So how does that work then?

Surprisingly simply.

A UK user is asked to produce their encryption keys and they can be sent to prison for up to 2 years if they don't.

Oh, you mean without any evidence of wrong doing or a Judge issuing a warrant.

Block storage is dead, says ex-HP and Supermicro data bigwig

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Meh

"if you divide the data into chunks and store the chunks"

Is anyone else hearing the sound of a very big "if" ?

Is anyone thinking "MULTICS" direct segment mapping of disk files to main memory?

Is anyone thinking of "Kinetic Drive" as ICL CAF with long string comparisons?

Just asking.

UN privacy head slams 'worse than scary' UK surveillance bill

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Re: For-profit privacy invasion

"Of course you'd say that if your paycheck depended on suppressing a natural human instinct."

Indeed.

Who does Vince Cerf work for now?

What is their main line of business?

Exactly.

DC judge rips into the NSA over mass surveillance

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@Jack of Shadows

"the US Marines intervened over one-hundred, yes 100, times in Nicaragua between 1919 and 1929. Every one of them was to put native unrest down that arose from the abuse of the peasants by United Fruit Co. "

Hence the term a "A Banana Republic"

E.ON fined £7m for smart meter fail

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What *customer* wants this?

AFAIK no one.

It's about the utility companies failing to plan and invest for the future and wanting the ability to "deliver" blackouts on demand.

As usual the same people who pay for the fines will be the people who pay for the meters.

The customers.

UK's internet spy law: £250m in costs could balloon to £2 BILLION

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"Terrorists / IS / bigtime criminals" already do use encryption, they have done for years."

"It's about population control, not crime reduction."

These are the usual excuses for this sort of law.

That they are used does not meant they actually mean anything.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Gimp

299 pages and *no* full cost estimate. I smell a PATRIOT (act) game.

You know a lot of those clauses will be filler with the real nasties buried deep. Lots of usual talk about the 4 horsemen IE Paedos, terrorist, drug traffickers and money launderers.

Also beware stuff like "Data to be be retained will be listed in Appendix X"

Where "Appendix X" is a) Subject to change later on (by "Statutory Instrument" or some other method with no judicial or democratic oversight ) or b) Includes an "And any other data the Home Secretary deems necessary" clause.

Yet another round of data fetishists play time.

BlackBerry Priv: Enterprise Android in a snazzy but functional package

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"snooze" an email for later action. you wonder why nobody's done it before.

But then we are in the Noddy Era of consumer software.

They did think of it before.

Go Corp Pen Point OS expected to move between networks so had a universal "outbox" to accumulate outgoing stuff to drop off when you got reconnected to a network

In about 1991.

Sounded like a good feature then.

Still does.

Now if only they can do something about Androids data incontinence....

Cops' IT too complex for quick and dirty revamp – Police ICT boss

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Re: I wish him luck

"The big problem is going to be to get the relevant buy in from the top down; and I'm not sure that will happen, as they all seem to be more concerned about maintaining their own little fiefdoms."

True.

At the same time this stuff seems to work best if they are not imposed by Whitehall. IE when individual forces get together to share costs.

Cash injection fuels SABRE spaceplane engine

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"What's the deal with taking off from Brussels?"

That is the M5 300 seat passenger aircraft project. LAPCAT and LAPCAT II. By Lapcat II their only competitor was the M8 German Kerosene SCRamjet, which seemed to have a lower heating load (if you could make a SCRamjet 10s of metres wide work).

It was funded under an EU framework agreement. Brussels paid the bill so they get to choose the reference flight path IIRC it was Brussels Canberra.

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""con-tractor" A device for moving a vast amount of con, "

That's much cleverer than why I originally started using it.

Very neat.

John Smith 19 Gold badge

Re: pull yer finger out

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one has ever built a working SSTO*,

True. A number have been proposed, some to high levels of detail.

"and this one is reusable as well. "

Virtually all have been proposed as reusable.

Historically all SSTO's have accepted you'd have to lose payload fraction, usually from the c3% of GTOW to about 1%.

Since people work out required funding levels from GTOW ("Cost Estimating Relationships") that is a very important secondary metric for anyone proposing an SSTO.

"it would be far more of a step forward in spaceflight than anything Space X has managed "

It would.

John Smith 19 Gold badge

Re: pull yer finger out

US We'll build quite a good LOX Kero gas generator rocket engine, which has has been done 20-40 times already using the "Bank of Elon" to fund it.

UK. We'll build a deeply pre cooled turbo rocket engine (which is what SABRE technically is) that will deliver an Isp about 6x that of the best rocket engines (while in the atmosphere) and allow you to build a Single Stage to Orbit vehicle with the same payload fraction as a 2 stage rocket (something no previous SSTO has come anywhere near deliving)

And we'll have to raise the money from investors who will demand a return on investment at every stage of the process.

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Very mixed feelings about this

.Plus side.

It's an extra £20m in the REL war chest.

Minus side

It's BAe.

If you look up "Government con-tractor" in a British dictionary they would be the entry.

UK cyber-spy law takes Snowden's revelations of mass surveillance – and sets them in stone

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In the UK the police can require your crypto keys and jail you for 2 years if you don't comply

If they have a case for asking for them

That means investigation to establish evidence of a crime being committed.

IE Real police work.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Meh

"any honest specialist in the field of crypto, advising the government, "

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

A bubble? No way, we're in a bust, says rich VC living in alternate reality

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Re: In a Bust

<Cough > Facebook.

John Smith 19 Gold badge

"good thing for the country," "bad thing for.. people built around making billion-dollar deal."

Then it sounds like the "market" has got things about right for a change.

Real people buy shares for 2 reasons. A) Share price rises B) Profit distribution through dividends.

If A you're hoping you can unload your shares on someone who wants them more than you do. But if they are a good company why would you want to, unless you're looking at some kind of Ponzi scheme? If B again why would you want to?

These companies seem to be talking P/E ratios in centuries (if they talk about them at all).

There core assets are a)Bunch of devs. b)Bunch of servers c)Bunch of BS development plans.

How big a server farm do you need to be worth $40Bn in assets?

You can't help think that if REL had some VC types around BAe would have put in rather more than £20m for rather less than 20% of the company.

Samsung S6 Edge has 11 nasties, says Google Project Zero team

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"the fact that Samsung are so laid back and pathetic with providing patches"

Ummm.

I think in handset land 3 months to an OTA patch is considered "fast"

How do you anonymize personal databases and protect people's privacy – over to you, NIST

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All of this is *far* too complicated for the UK government to understand

Who will continue to wap out any dataset they can with virtually zero privacy protection and trust "the market" will "Do No Evil (TM)" with it.

In-a-spin Home Sec: 'We won't be rifling through people's web history'

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Gimp

"this is about the third or fourth time they've tried to get the snooper's charter in as law"

Possibly more.

Governments come and governments go and yet after a few months in post the new sock puppet Home Secretary asks for this to be included.

So what's the common denominator between (by my count) eight Home Secretaries?

I think it's time the Senior Civil Servants should start to be identified.

They seem to be remarkably reluctant to step into the limelight

I remain convinced this is not a policy, it's a disease.

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Or even better a statutory instrument - which will sail through virtually unseen.

Indeed.

Much favored by the the Dark Lord Mandelsohn under Blair*

*But no Conservative should feel too smug about that.

Think Fortran, assembly language programming is boring and useless? Tell that to the NASA Voyager team

John Smith 19 Gold badge

Re: Some mis-info here:

"DMA usage is very common. As I write this I'm taking a 10 minute break from debugging a dma issue on an ARM micro. The CPU is doing almost no work (CPU loading of about 1%), but the DMA is working at about 70%."

You need to read the chapter. Slowly.

The design team added DMA to each individual instructions implementation when data transfers were not quick enough. Not an option for any modern mpu's IP.

"What do you mean by rehosting the assembler? I would expect the assembler is a cross-assembler (ie. it runs on a normal machine (eg. originally a Vax or such, but now aLinux box), but generates code for the target CPU. THat's how most embedded systems are developed."

True, these systems data from the 70's. IOW you're looking at 70's assembler written in the 70's version of it's implementation language and running on a 70's computer.

It all depends on how up to date NASA's tool hosting has been.

If the toolset was developed in a main stream language without using too many supplier unique features it'll be simple. If they relied on special features of that language or its support libraries you'd either have to duplicate them or build a new tool chain.

John Smith 19 Gold badge
WTF?

Some info here:

You'll notice in fact there are 3 processors involved here. Some came from the Viking programme but all (AFAIK) are custom processors built out of LS TTL, usually aroudn the LS171 ALU, like the PD11 and the Xerox PARC Alto.

When one of the processors was not fast enough to do the work they decided to add a DMA mode to all instructions to allow "hidden" data movements without the direct involvement of the CPU.

Not something the average x86 or ARM programmer is used to considering as a design option.

I suspect the JPL does have the necessary documents but you may have to rehost the assembler if you're going to have a go at re-programming Voyager as data updates are going to be sloooooow.

Top cops demand access to the UK's entire web browsing history

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"They won't share this data with their friends at the NSA of course"

They don't have to.

GCHQ will copy them in

Do you ever wonder how much faster all UK internet access would be if most of it was not being copied to a set of "backup" servers in Cheltenham?

UK ministers, not judges, to sign off on Brit spies' surveillance

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"the home secretary signs anything and everything put in front of her, just in case?"

Just like all her predecessors

UK.gov plans to legislate on smut filters after EU net neutrality ruling

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Gimp

Usual TOTC BS.

You know this has f**k all to do with them.

US Army bug hunters in 'state of fear' that sees flaws go unreported

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So the mystery of Bradley Manning is in fact

That he appears to be the only one who got away with so much US comms traffic.

Lawyers harrumph at TalkTalk's 'no obligation to encrypt' blurt

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EU directive --> 5% of annual turnover.

Now that's the kind of money CEO's start caring about.

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@itzman

"I have implemented several websites that store sensitive information, The scripts that allow 'correct credentials' to extract pertinent information do NOT allow global access to all information. Because the strictly limited SQL queries are built into the scripts., And the keys are stored outside the scripts themselves so that even if the scripts are compromised, they cannot be run successfully on another machine against a stolen encrypted database."

I understood your description in about 30 seconds.

I don't really understand what is so hard about implementing this process.

EU urged to ignore net neutrality delusions, choose science instead

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" we can schedule it to deliver good enough user experiences. "

What the ISP thinks is "good enough" may not be what I think is "good enough"

Be clear what that does to the ISP.

They are no longer a common carrier like a voice telco.

They are checking you're packets and deciding what you are allowed to send, and when.

What you're allowed to receive, and when.

In fact AFAIK UK broadband ISP's guarantee no minimum standard of service.

Not even that you will always be connected.

Web giants, Sir Tim slam Europe's net neutrality rules on eve of vote

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So loosely worded each of those provisions are basically a blank cheque to ISP's

Yes making a profit being an ISP is tough.

But that's all I want out of you.

ISP's.

Give us a service that does what it says (no "Super Duper fast Broadband delivers 200mbs* " BS )

and fix it when it goes wrong.

And stop f**king spying on us like Stalk Stalk.

*Averaged over a 5 sec period at 215am and where the other 49 subscriber you're contended with are all pensions who don't use the internet).

Android Security: How's BlackBerry going to fix it?

John Smith 19 Gold badge
Go

As a business plan this just *might* work

Leverage stuff they are good at and know how to do.

No guarantees.

Just might.

Chaos at TalkTalk: Data was 'secure', not all encrypted, we took site down, were DDoSed

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"She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics."

Which seems to be the course de jour for heads of MI5 and MI6

Hmm.

But basically learning how to write essays to prove (convincingly) that White is Black and vice versa, or why grinding the faces of the poor is essential to their (long term) economic well being.

Useless in any real work environment but quite handy for certain kinds of companies and the civil service.

You may (probably are) talking complete b**locks, but you will sound convincing with it.

Wouldn't be be handy if there were a collated list of all graduates of PPE course in the UK you could refer too?

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"appallingly poor measures implemented to protect stored customer data "

Perhaps they where hoping their Chinese website spying partner would have alerted them to so much traffic, when they started running low on space to store so many users data flows?

"Stalk Stalk" have let their customers down.

Again.

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"How our customers will judge us" as the CEO put it

Badly I think

This way to the egress?

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Experian - the Facebook of credit rating agencies.

Until Facebook takes over that task as well.

With predictable consequences

9 cuffed over £60 million banking scam targeting UK businesses

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So basically fonejacker plaid for real.

"Can I have you bank details please."

I guess since none of the accused spoke with a Nigerian accent they were not expecting a scam.

BYOD battery bloodbath? Facebook 'fesses up to crook code

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Re: This is what happens

"I'm guessing that the A team is the team that managed to float them at the inflated price...."

Probably.

Although I think their P/E ratio has fallen to the point where you could double your holding in FB using their dividends in less than a century.

Security researchers face wrath of spy agencies

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Makes a mockery of any of that "Only machines read everthing and we don't use most of it" BS

"Biographical leverage" as John Brunner called it.

Intelligence agencies are exactly like any other kind of bureaucracy that feels threatened by anyone.

GCHQ to pore over blueprints of Chinese built Brit nuke plants

John Smith 19 Gold badge

For those interested in nuclear reactor design a few points to ponder.

Big cost drivers include.

Conventional gas/oil/coal reactors run steam around 550c/160atm. PWR run about 300c but 200atm.

Building reactors that match conventional power stations means you can buy conventional steam turbine/generator packages from the suppliers, rather than special PWR ones. That was the thinking behind the AGR's. It's still a good idea.

Very large pressure vessels, like an AGR are known tech but need a lot of concrete and reinforcing steel.

Using a lot of steel in the core mandates enriched fuel, which multiplies costs and proliferation problems. Not an issue when the launch customer for Westinghouse had the only enriched fuel supply on the planet

Likewise anything whose mfg process begins with "First, discard all other isotopes of element X" guarantees a slow, low volume, high cost production cycle. That's the case for certain designs using Nitride fuel. Zirconium would be a good nuclear engineering material (low neutron cross section) but it's always found with Hafnium (high cross section) making it a PITA to get rid of the Hafnium (very chemically similar)

The machining and mfg of structural graphite, carbon fibre and reinforced carbon carbon (mostly used in aircraft brake pads) has greatly improved since the last AGR was built, as has the CFD and CAE techniques to predict the shape changes under thermal stress and irradiation. Fibre can be made which is 20-40x better at heat conduction along it's axis than common brands.

Coolant pumps are a major PITA in cost and maintenance.

Inert coolants are better (although superheated water is very reactive, yet people seem to manage that). CO2 was OK but you store a lot of energy in compressed gas (especially when the volume is the size of a small house). Sodium and Sodium/Potassium is the Physicists choice. Chemical engineers consider it idiotically dangerous to use (they're right). Lead sounds nasty but is actually not bad. Bismuth is 10x as expensive and decays to the intense Alpha emitter Polonium (as do most isotopes of Lead). Adding enough Bismuth to let it run below the freezing point of Polonium would let you "plate out" the Polonium in a controlled way.

Control rod drive motors run $1m each.

Uranium Oxide is a very poor conductor of heat, giving very highly stressed fuel pellets. Carbides and Nitrides are 10x better but could dissolve in seawater. A problem for submarine nuclear reactors (the original use of PWRs). For anything sitting on land (IE 99% of all PWRs), not so much.

Reactors mfg don't make their profit selling reactors. Like Gillette they make it on the consumables IE the fuel rods. Any new design should keep that in mind.

So for low cost reactors you want..

Unenriched fuel.

Low pressures for minimal pressure vessel mass

High temperatures to generate conventional power plant condition steam.

Gravity feeding to eliminate pumps (believed feasible up to 400MW electric)

Minimum number of control rods in core or moderator outside the core (like the Toshiba 3S design).

Existing knowledge base from either the nuclear or other industries that can raise the TRL and get you started with less risk.

I'll leave others to ponder what directions those requirements would drive a clean sheet design toward.

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To correct you're sentence......

"Why are so many British national infrastructure projects being farmed out to foreign countries?

FTFY.

Basically because the UK does not include a "Use local labor" metric in the scorecard it uses to decide which bid is "best" when they advertise in the EU Journal.

Hence the reason (IIRC) why a big order of tube trains (or was it mainline trains) was built in Germany.

You may not be be too surprised to learn that other countries use different rules when bidding out their infrastructure projects.

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At the end of the 1960's the UK had...

An independent AGR nuclear programme.

Independent space launch through Black Arrow

Nuclear weapons (launched on US supplied missiles).

A 100 seat supersonic transport ready to go into passenger service.

In 2015 the UK has

Nuclear weapons (launched on US supplied missiles) and a £20Bn+ replacement cost.

The UK abandoned the rest. :(

But you can still flash fry Moscow on a few minutes notice.

So F**king What?

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Re: National infrastructure projects @AC

"Omitted the fact that because the UK government is keen not to pay anything upfront and have the construction financed by the Chinese, the price the UK pays for electricity from these plants has been further inflated as it will include interest repayments on the capital needed to build them and operate them until such time as they break even (after 30~40 years); at which point the profit extraction can commence."

Welcome to the PPP electricity grid.

Just like the PPP hospitals and PPP schools.

Something you're grand kids can tell you.

"Grandpappy, we finally paid the ba**ards off."

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Re: "selling property overseas to invest in its own future."

"I dunno if you're being sarcastic, but — Me."

I was, and I do.

It's inevitable that once these rich f**kers price each other out of the market they'll start eyeing up other parts of Britain to buy empty houses in.

Note this is nothing to do with need. These bankers/gangsters/"entrepreneurs" are doing quite nicely in their own countries. What they want is a bolt hole in case the local elites they pay off start charging too much for them to carry out their "business." (or the people actually manage to depose them).

I might speculate that there are whole London housing developments where, if you got the cleaning and security staff out, you could blow it to pieces and there would be no casualties as no human actually lives in them.

Not that I'm suggesting this of course.

"But yes, abstractedly, who indeed does care?"

Only those making a profit.

For whatever piece of policy is being decided always ask "Quo bono?"

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GCHQ to scour code for backdoors, eh?

Takes one to know one.

'Nuff said.

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"selling property overseas to invest in its own future."

I think you'll find it's foreign "investors" buying vacant property in London this government is so keen to attract.

Who cares if they make housing unaffordable anywhere in London?