Posts by JaitcH 3904 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Oct 2009
face the diminished influence and power of the country, only the Tories refuse to accept it. All those smoke filled clubs in London where aged, shriveled and wrinkled, former military types are still regaling each other with their fast fading memories of battles won long ago.
Likewise, Britain does not rule the InterNet and, factually, some of the greatest hackers are to be found far, far, to the East of the country. Britain can't even prosecute hackers based in this country and rely on others to do so.
Perhaps they will have GCHQ turn off the power to all the cables they are hooked into in the West country. But even that scheme is about to be thwarted as some countries plan new cable configurations that circumvent the UK.
And what of the War of the IoT Bots? Has GCHQ even figured that one out yet?
The only thing the government can lay claim to is that they were the first, and therefore the oldest, communications hackers in history. Britain, and the USA, have to accept their prowess is no longer what it was and that many other countries have superior skills to them.
Metro Plod, along with the MI Mob, the Border Plod and the US' FBI and DEA have vivid imaginations. They can turn almost any scenario into a 'terrorist' related activity.
As a frequent intercontinental traveller I experience many types of Plod, or Cops, who seem to have one thing in common - ignorance.
Because of the UK 4 years jail or your password, and possession of various publications which are legal in many jurisdictions, I do a clean reload of my smartphone OS as well as the few Apps essential to the purpose of my journey. As new installs there is no history to reveal my activities. Oh, there is one particularly distasteful porn movie which I use to persuade parents of noisy kids on flights to stay well clear of me. Works well for those seat mates who try to see my screen, too.
Often I am asked to show my smartphone to border security, in the West, and the fact I have no social media Apps, or pictures, seems to give them cause for concern. It's amusing to see their high tech whiz score a maiden over and discover zip on my handset even though I have PGP, Signal, Telegram, Tor, Onion and other suggestive Apps. I even have a software coding program mounted.
The 'offences' with which Samata Ullah is charged could equally be applied to myself and other innocent people. In years past train spotting was common, these days the Plod 'investigates' such juveniles.
I have trained people in the use of encryption software; I have researched many subjects that should make the hairs of a security type's neck go erect; I also have websites that are adverse to some Western nations interests. I even design circuitry for munitions applications.
But this doesn't mean I support ISIS, Daesh, the NRA, etc. What it DOES mean is that I value my privacy.
Likewise, my several (legal) passports have most visas removed (acetone loosens any glue) and the multitude of immigration stamps are largely obliterated. This excites the Passport Agency, but it still doesn't make me a ''terrorist'. I favour 'loose' visas, the type that is stapled in to your passport rather than glued. The reason is that the price of a larger UK passport is excessive and 'loose' visas extend the average life of my passport from a couple of years to maybe even 8.
Travel from certain geographic areas automatically rates you as a drug dealer/runner. By using a different passport to enter a Western country that doesn't have a 'drug' country as your last destination gets you past Customs expeditiously.
So you are screwed if you do and you are screwed if you don't - just because of the twisted minds of 'security' types.
The USA has chalked up an impressive number of wars and non-wars (undeclared military actions) that gives the impression the USA doesn't really give a damn about law. Especially under Bush Junior.
Torture, including waterboarding, is not legal under the Geneva Convention, yet did this stop these alleged military legal beagles from preventing aggression?
And what of overflights by drones - where do they get ATC (Air Traffic Control) clearance from? What of the late Freedom Fighter UBL who was killed by people entering Pakistan without passports, visas or any permission.
Seems there should be better legal sources around - like France, etc.
therefore, I wonder, why doesn't a little canary send off an e-mail to the intended DOJ victim saying Uncle Sam wants to look at your stuff? After all, National Security Letters only apply to US jurisdiction and if one US law is challenged, why not this?
The e-mail owner could then delete his account, and then MS could say: "Too late!"?
made in China - even British Army camo fatigues.
Little is confidential when exposed to the talents of the Chinese technicians in ShangHai.
I can get a 12-layer PCB analysed, copied and reproduced and returned in a few days. Want a copy of the software? Many chips can be mechanically opened and the contents acquired.
So all one need do is to buy a unit and have it broken down.
IP leakage is usually due to the greed of Western vendors who want to max out the profit by having products made in China. The Chinese government often requires that 'trade secrets' be handed over by Foreign manufacturers having product made in China.
'relevant authorities' and airlines have banned the Samsung device.
Given that this warning has been broadcast both loud and wide, most PAX would leave their little firebombs at home - rather than take them on a proposed flight.
I am keeping my employer-donated Note 7s (they live on my desk in lieu of a landline phone) but I did swap out the battery for a Panasonic unit.
From an engineering point of view, Samsung, in placing this battery sandwiched between layers of electronics, was an expensive compromise. Personally, I never buy equipment where batteries are inaccessible to the user.
To access the Samsung Note 7 battery I used a SMD workstation to heat up the glue holding the back panel. Then it is necessary to remove an electronics module (easy) to expose the battery. Finally, using non-metallic tools, and NO heat, it is possible to extract the battery.
The friendly Samsung service point I frequent (we have around 8 in Ho Chi Minh City/SaiGon alone), wouldn't take the battery out for me but the kindly provided a manual printout on how to complete the exercise.
Given that our white-haired friend is a guest of Ecuador, I personally think diddling with elections in any country is not helpful for democracy, especially in these circumstances. Democracy is an element in Wikileaks raison d'être.
I have thought even Snowden has pushed his luck on occasion, but at least he is smart enough not to mess with elections from his new home in Moscow.
In the meantime, GCHQ can save a little on the overtime, just like the London Plod did when their bills starting reaching double-digits in millions of Pounds/Dollars/Shekels.
I have worked in the DPRK repairing our companies equipment they purchased through government resellers.
Getting there requires a multiple-entry Chinese visa. I go through HongKong then use rail to the border. There are three border gates for non-tourists. Tourists have to travel to Pyongyang and Americans can only fly there from BeiJing.
As my DPRK visa states "Government Guest Worker" I can choose the gate nearest my destination - travel, food and accommodation is best on the Chinese side of the border. I prefer land travel - rail - as I usually have to carry test equipment. The DPRK trains I class as hard seat - worse than any aged UK train.
Since I am going to industrial DPRK I make sure I am well stocked with Chinese noodles as I don't like extremely spicy food. The DPRK customs inspection takes an age, uneducated inspectors gazing at awe at modern electronics. They seal my laptops - to be only opened at destination. Water-based glue is not very effective on plastic!
My visas are 'loose', stapled and not glued into my passport. (Glued visas are easily removed with acetone) This means I have deniability. Since I legally have several passports I leave China on one and enter the DPRK on another.
I have to be escorted, usually a female, from the border to the work centre. I have had the same female for the last several years, so we are now friends. Her English is excellent. I pack my equipment interiors with small, valuable, gifts to give away.
I carry large business cards on which is printed information about Canada and I give these to people who dare to shake hands and say 'Hello'! At the work centre things are very relaxed, but the food and accommodation is not good. They eat some very strange things!
There is a hunger for technical knowledge and we print out what I take since DPRK storage media is encoded and re-entering by hand circumvents these trackers. The customs might count SD chips but they can't count the contents! I usually leave
You can now use cell handsets in the DPRK - you buy a 'Foreigner' SIM that restricts your connections to other Foreigners and International calls. I use a multi-SIM Chinese handset and my customer gives me a DPRK resident SIM which allows me to contact DPRK users.
As I have been there numerous times over the past 7 years and my work place is somewhat distant from Pyongyang what I call the 'Communist bullsh*t' is more relaxed. The local techs invite me to their homes, along with my female guide. I often take my female guide, a widow with children, to dinner and she takes large 'doggy bags' home.
If any tech reader gets the opportunity to visit the DPRK - go. Just learn the rules. And leave whatever technical goodies behind as gifts when you leave. They appreciate even solder.
Also remember the DPRK gets bloody cold, as cold as Northern Canada, and the difference is they have minimal inside heating. Take warm clothes. Assume that there are no facilities there that you need for your work. And if you see a national entertainment group, such as the Moranbong Band (Moran Hill Orchestra) out in the regions, often there are only a few members of the main Orchestra there with back-ups picking up the slack.
In the USA most of the lower ranks of security are outsourced, but since Snowden, et al, they have been examining their procedures.
The US government keeps files on people that include juvenile 'criminal' offences.
A colleague at a US company was 'government security cleared' and was a trouble shooter on sophisticated computer equipment. He was called out to sort out a problem at some nuclear facility that was guarded by the Secret Service.
In order to enter he had to be positively identified (fingerprints) and a computerised check run on him. As he waited in the parking lot for the OK, he was approached by two armed Secret Service types who told him to leave.
His employer was advised he had 'had a juvenile criminal record' - which are supposed to be sealed court records. He had broken some greenhouse windows. His employer said it was my friend or no one, who could fix their problems.
Two days later the plant called up and said my friend could return, and be admitted, as the problem had bee 'expunged'!
So much for security!
A friend who designed encryption chips used in secure terminals was awarded a contract for some government work.
He had lived aboard a well appointed boat bought with the proceeds of an earlier venture. He queried what answers to give on the 'vetting' form vis-a-vis employment, addresses resided at, etc. Since he was essentially self-employed, a high tech "rolling stone", he was advised to have a friend say that he was employed by them.
I, the 'employer' friend, was later contacted by some form of Plod who started asking various questions. I cut the man short and said instead of wasting my time, just e-mail me the questions and I'll check my records.
A couple of weeks later, after an appropriate delay, I emailed my response: "Looks good to me".
My friend has been working away and is now on the fourth extension of the contract.
The whole exercise was bureaucratic bullsh*t, they were buying his knowledge and skills and could hardly fail him, a single source vendor!
Any devices (rockets, ships, etc) that contain US products are subject to use with US authorisation only.
It's how the USA controls aircraft sales to countries it doesn't like.
The Trident missile is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV) and are sold to the UK in accordance with the 1963 Polaris Sales Agreement, as amended. It was originally developed by Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation. The four Royal Navy Vanguard-class submarines have British warheads.
Here in VietNam, imported American and Japanese cars are fitted with all these electronic wonders as well as the necessary cell system interface. For various reasons many of these things spend all their lives going 'Allo; 'Allo because of cell system interfacing problems.
It is common practice for VNese car mechanics to disable these devices before delivery.
I wonder if this Big Plod realises that cars fitted with GM OmniTrak already have this feature in the OmniTrak and is often used by the American cops?
Besides, London's Met has it's own one-man car disabling man, one PC Savage of Camden. < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEjWUClQXZg > < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO8EpfyCG2Y&feature=youtu.be >.
His type is why I carry a small squeezy bottle of Chinese chilli oil - the darker the better! Works wonders in focusing people's attentions.
soldiers who have died over the decades in order to protect citizen's freedoms.
Then bLIAR, Blunkett and May are born and make the Gestapo or KGB look like pussy cats.
The British system of using magistrates or Plod, even, to impose such penalties is completely wrong. In civilised countries magistrates usually handle only traffic tickets. Even worse is the practice of judges verbally abusing miscreants who have no means of defending themselves, without the penalty of contempt.
Ignoring the fact that cell handsets can be traced, or most airport lines are recorded, it is common practice amongst many air carriers that late arrivals, etc. are NOT boarded following a bomb, or other threat.
Kelowna is a city in the Okanagan Valley, in the south of Canada’s British Columbia. It’s somewhat being on a remote shore of Okanagan Lake, surrounded by provincial parks, pine forest, vineyards, orchards and mountains.
If they put the guy on a No Fly list, he would have a long way to drive ... anywhere!
require that they be filled.
Older people can get away with murder, so to speak. They aren't quite sure what social media is. So confuse the ICE men:
http://wickedspatula.com; www.dogforum.com; http://www.birdforum.net.
But remember, lying to a US Federal official is a felony - so at least sign up.
You'll be denied entry on the grounds that you are a morality risk to the gentle folk who inhabit that country.
The ICE types who greet you on arrival call it "Moral Turpitude", that is a legal concept in the United States that refers to "conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty or good morals.
Plan on never re-entering.
I use Metability QuickFix. It’s a small, free program that will wipe the GPS data from photos you have.
With a a smartphone camera you can delete their GPS coordinates, by opening the Camera app and hunt through its settings until you find the Location option. Different places on different smartphones. With Android phones alone, manufacturers heavily customize the Camera App, even from phone to phone.
iPhone, you’ll need to open the Location Services configuration pane and disable location access for the Camera app.
QUOTE: "BriteCloud detects RF emissions and cross-references them against its pre-programmed threat library. Upon finding a match, the decoy applies advanced algorithms and emits a deception signal to defeat the threat radar and incoming missile.”
We must agree with our enemies they won't make changes to their transmitted patterns OR to switch to laser guidance for the last few seconds. Then it might work.
If by 'Precision Guided 500lb Bomb' you are referring to laser guided, more accurately laser marked target bombs, they are only as accurate as their markers.
The target is identified by the laser carrying marker being identified using a 4-digit number entered by the pilot. This number is conveyed to the bomber pilot who dials it in to the ''Precision Guided 500lb Bomb". The bomb ignores all other 4-digit identifiers.
The alternative can be infra-red markers placed around/near by ground based accomplices OR a laser target marking system. These are often referred to as Ground Laser Target Designator (GLTD) and are used in conjunction with Paveway bombs and Hellfire missiles.
The transmitted marker is from a Nd:YAG laser with a wavelength of 1.064 micrometres (3.93701e-5 inches) and a pulse energy energy of up to 80 Millijoules (0.0010 watt seconds). They are good for -32 degrees C to +45 degrees C operation.
Unaligned nations are using IR receivers that decode the marker signal and transmit the codes, in real time, to alternative IR decoy markers which then become the target for the incoming weapons, thereby rendering the 'Precision Guided 500lb Bomb' less ineffective.
So much for 'precision'.
If you object to HM Snoops observing your presence, the installation of a string of 3 watt Infra-Red LEDs around the periphery of a number plate, and a couple as imitation mounting bolts in the centre of the plate, is a very effective way of blinding various optical electronic devices.
In the hours of darkness, the effect is greatly enhanced. The use of a sequencer, aka Knight Rider, to illuminate the LEDs randomly (not sequentially) improves the obfuscation.
The big difference between Britain and other countries is tha absence of the oversight of the judiciary in UK covert operations.
Although, given the relationship between a certain party and the judiciary, their presence would simply be a rubber stamp.
they can spot these even smaller flying objects?
I suggest some of these pilots suffer from more than extreme visual acuity, like wild imaginations.
I was a technician with the Met Office years ago attached to one of their busier weather balloon launch sites. The radiosonde and battery weighed a pound (lb) or two and the balloons were a creamy white.
No pilot ever complained about these aerial objects and they flew tens of thousands of feet in height.
Given that many products come off the same production lines in China, with only a label being different, WHAT OTHER CABLES ARE DEFECTIVE?
P.S. Samsung USB C cables are crap - they use HARD PLASTIC sheathing that invariably cracks and then the internal cables break.
bLIAR and Blunkett started this sort of 'justice' with their 4 Years Or Your Password legislation. And bLIAR demonstrated PMs can lie to the public and escape retribution ... even make millions of Pounds from it.
What's next - THOUGHT CRIME?
And the UN says privacy is a Human Right! (A sick joke)
Cambodia and Thailand have previously had restrictions on SIM purchases.
The solution was simple. Drop the hotel concierge $5 plus the cost of a SIM and in a few minutes you will have that magic chip. I do this every time I go to BKK to purchase specialised electronic supplies from Western distributors located in Thailand.
Some hotel workers must have thousands of SIMs attached to their names.
The ATR 72 is one of a family of twin turboprop passenger/freighter aircraft manufactured by Avions de Transport Regional (ATR). ATR, of Toulouse, a joint venture between EADS and Finmeccanica / Alenia Aeronautica (Italy).There are around 1000 flying.
They are popular in 'developing' such as Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and VietNam because they are tough and easily maintained, VietNam Airlines does maintenance for itself as well as Cambodia and Laos. Laos is notorious for increasing seating capacity by adding plastic chairs in the aisles, along with caged pigs, etc.
I have seen one of these ATR72s land, and overrun the runway, and end up mowing the bush at the end of a runway. A simple wipe down of the propellers, along with a touchy-feely gloved hand and the machine was ready to continue.
So for some pilots to complain is stupid as these aeronautical bush whackers would make short shrift of a drone. I suspect, given the speed of the ART72, the size of a drone, and the inability of pilots to focus on distant objects.
Besides, it was THE ATR72 that flew ALONGSIDE the DRONE - the ATR72 being the faster winged object. If this was a road, a faster vehicle approaching from the rear would have to accommodate the slower vehicle by driving to one side and passing.
The fastest quad-drone is around 70-80 K(ilometres)PH and the ATR72 can easily top 300 Knots.
In the States you can fly a weather balloon, with a 12 lbs (5.4 kg) total payload without a permit - and how many of these balloons (popular with students) are reported by aircraft?
As I said, unnecessary scaremongering. Just civil servants trying to make work for themselves.
The Cong An, aka Peoples Police, is responsible for doing Copyright Checks - an annual fiasco where they announce the checks are coming, even posting a schedule of victims. These companies immediately arrange for sets of genuine MS product to be motorcycled from one enterprise to another , so that when the boys in khaki arrive, a pile of CDs awaits inspection.
Funny thing is, the biggest consumer of hot Windows products is ... the Cong An!
Their crappy computers can't run anything better - in fact the Cong An stations I visit to renew business permits have resorted to employees bringing in their own laptops.
Paper is a killer in VietNam, and the government must have the biggest repository of Red Ink, too.
Every household has an Occupancy Book in which is inscribed the names and ID Card numbers of the registered occupants. The local Cong An station has an exact duplicate of the book, along with thousands of others. This replication extends for all the numerous forms the Cong An administers.
They only use computers to print yet more forms ... and watch the InterNet. They are also big in FAX (more paper). Google Translate is the main medium through which they communicate with Foreigners. Google Translate has a 'few' shortcomings when translating in to Vietnamese which either produces laughs or looks of shock.
Long Live XP!
Like all good techs, and university professors, they like to toot their horn and praise their technical prowess.
So it was with HSBC when they started pulling e-mail addresses and pushing voice calls. I chatted with one of their operators and she said they were experimenting with 'voice id' instead of the lists of questions.
Anyone who has used Nuance Dragon software are very familiar with what can go wrong.
It is possible to emulate another persons voice, borrowing from the Moog synthesiser crowd, and now my PA, a female, is able to impersonate me very well, electronically. On one test we started off with my voice and over a period of 2-3 minutes we slowly morphed from my simulated voice to her natural voice.
Eventually something clicked at the HSBC end and she said "But you are not ..." at which point we flicked back to the simulation. The woman said there is something very wrong because "our equipment is 'infallible'!"
Voice ID suffers from all the usual imperfections of distortion, phase distortion, clicks, etc. You name it.
The real danger is the banks will start saying their equipment is PERFECT and the person who sucked your account dry was YOU! And then they will try to stick you with the losses.
I guess this is yet further confirmation that the FBI, et al, have NO CONFIDENCE whatsoever in the extremely expensive Motorola designed, US coast-to-US coast clear-channel P25 system.
But Mattel proved that long ago.
This is most likely a Pentagon ploy to keep politicians critical of the whole scheme from getting to know the truth.
This aircraft barely meets specifications ... so they re-write the specifications!
Did they fix the pilots flying suit problems yet? Or the helmet? (F-35 helmet costs ISD$400,000 - 4 times that of predecessor) How about pilots under 136 pounds aren't allowed to fly any F-35 variant because they may die?
Another 'design by committee' that fails.
VietNam Post insists on delivery to the recipients hand (bunch of thieves in the streets makes this imperative).
Our local P.O. will send you an SMS if the addressees Cell Number is appended to their name. This is really great for all parties involved.
My unofficial arrangement with the local P.O. Sorting Office, which serves 7,000,000+ people, is that they will leave me a SMS message and I can collect it at the Sorting Office Sunday through Friday!
Better than the (new) Royal Mail.
Many of these cameras use Infra-Red - especially the number plate readers/loggers.
The solution to this Big Brother problem lies in the ubiquitous Infra-Red 3 watt LED.
Surrounding your number plate with several of these 3-watt LEDs, with a couple placed in the centre of the plate as 'dummy' mounting screws, effectively 'blinds' IR cameras. Modulating them at 4-10 Hz increases their effectiveness.
Wearing a US-style baseball cap with 5mm IR LEDs scattered around the top of the 'peak' blinds cameras effectively, too. And, being IR, emit no visible light for Plod to see (unless they use a smartphone camera to view you).
with it's bLIAR/Blunkett '4 years or your password' legislation.
The obvious bypass is to use a Satphone.
In days of yore, satellite handsets required large, external antennae. One of my units is a Inmarsat Isatphone pro and, like the Globalstar GSP-1700, has a fold-away antennae which makes it less obtrusive when not in use.
Gets past Chinese customs who have hawk-eyes for satphones.
The DP's (Delayed Pioneers) from the UK simply named villages/town/objects after places/things in the UK.
Ontario has a City of London with the Thames River (in that order) flowing through it, too.
Back in the day, the term "Taronto" referred to a channel of water between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching, but in time the name passed southward, and was eventually applied to a new fort at the mouth of the Humber River. Simcoe was named after a British governor.
My favourite town in Northern Ontario, Kapuskasing, is located on the Kapuskasing River, 493 km northwest of North Bay. The name derives from a CREE term meaning "branch" (the Kapuskasing R being a branch of the Mattagami) or "place where the river bends."
My employer manufactures military items that are sold, through our government, to 'non-aligned' countries.
Few of our systems comply with international frequency assignments, we are talking war, even 'civilian' applications use 14, 27, 50, 72 and 75MHz, as well as the 'WiFi' bands. Spread Spectrum, such as used by Futuba and drone ground speeds of up to 70MPH - just going into production - make many interdiction strategies redundant
A work colleague us in the Battle Bot gaming hobby and his bot uses non-standard frequencies and signalling technologies and he often wins when he activates his bots WiFi jammers.
Still, with 380 sales dropping, I guess Airbus can use the money.
Jane Mansfield, who always carried an impressive load of melons, was a passenger in a car with three adults up front and children, sleeping, on the back seat. The three adults were Mansfield, driver Ronnie Harrison and lawyer Sam Brody.
They were decapitated.
Canadian Mansfield Bars are stronger than American units, by law, but none are really that good. The BEST are MANAC - dry van trailers in the U.S. under the name TRAILMOBILE. Their advantage is the supports of the Mansfield Bars are towards the outer end - where the worst damage occurs,
Angular hits suffer the greatest damage and deaths. Short nosed vehicles, even hitting at 90 degrees, are also heavy losers.
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