Posts by The_Idiot

At the beginning...

... I found myself remembering 'Jack Reacher - Never go back'. Jack is in Colonel Morgan's office:

**********

Col. Morgan: You're under no obligation to say anything, Major.

Jack Reacher: Ex-Major

Col. Morgan: Upon leaving yesterday, did you attempt to contact Major Turner?

[pause]

Col. Morgan: Did you confront her attorney, Colonel Moorcroft, at Fort Dyer at 1100?

Jack Reacher: [long pause] You told me not to say anything.

Col. Morgan: I said you didn't have to say anything.

Jack Reacher: Yes.

Col. Morgan: Yes, you confronted him?

Jack Reacher: Yes, I understand I don't have to say anything.

Col. Morgan: For the record, you did confront Colonel Moorcroft yesterday. Can you state your whereabouts last night between 0130 and 0500?

Jack Reacher: Yes.

Col. Morgan: Yes, what?

Jack Reacher: Yes, I understand I don't have to say anything.

**********

I regret to say...

... I sort of agree with Mr Musk.

Not because of AI - but because of AS. Artificial Stupidity.

So far (at least, as far as I am aware), systems aren't self-coding. So they're coded by humans. Generally they're coded by humans to take action without human intervention. Thing is, they're coded _by_ humans to do what the humans think should be done in a situation that hasn't happened yet, in circumstances that are not yet known. And lord knows, we humans don;t exactly have a perfect track record of making those decisions when events _do_ happen and the circumstances _are_ to some degree known.

So humans code, and they code in line with their own prejudices and assumptions. Hence, AS. And results more potentially Musk-y than Zuck-y - though Sucky might well be the case... :-(.

Cure...

... response from Ministers:

"Yes, of course! We agree _entirely_! Well, and we know _you_ agree you'll only use that special encryption only _we_ can backdoor into. So we have a deal, yes? Oh, I suppose the other Ministers too. And our police. Well, and _their_ police. And our security services. Yes, and theirs. Unless it's an even numbered week - we don't like them on even numbered weeks. So you have to be able to turn _their_ backdoors off on even numbered weeks. So - we have a deal? What do you mean it's impossible? I thought we were having an adult conversation here!"

So...

... as a genuine question, but one from a non-USA-ian, how does this work under US law? Especially if it's t'internet? For example, assuming (say) New York passes its law:

1: I'm an internet user living in New York. My ISP is also based in New York. It sells my information to a buyer in New York. Illegal? (I'm assuming that's the easy one)

2: I'm in New York. My ISP is based in, say, Texas. They sell my information to a buyer in New York. Illegal?

3: I'm in New York, my ISP is in Texas, the buyer is in Minnesota. Illegal?

4: I'm _not_ in New York. My ISP isn't in New York, and neither is the buyer. But my internet traffic can be shown to relate to sites that _are_ in New York. Illegal?

I'm not trying to be a smart-a$$. I'd genuinely like to understand. Or is it like most things under law? It depends on who has the best lawyers, and who gets to pick the judge?

So tell me again...

... Ms Rudd, about how weakened encryption with 'secret' (at least, according to some government definition of 'secret') backdoors is a really, really good idea.

""Last week's attack has highlighted the need for a proper public debate on this issue."

Ben Wallace - for Amber Rudd, I assume.

"Because what we want to do is collect information this year so that next year we can have an adult conversation in this country."

James Comey

I would be fine with said 'public debate' - or even Mr Comey's 'adult conversation' - if either had the right subject. But, for me, that subject is _not_ 'should we be allowed to insist that technology providers give us some magic back door only we will be able to use, like, _evah_, and Bad Folks won't ever be able to find out.'. Mathematics, in the context of _that_ question, has already spoken, and a debate has no purpose.

No - for me, the subject of that 'debate', that 'conversation' should be something like 'are you, the people, both willing and happy to accept that you should not be permitted any privacy, any discreet communication (because anything we do Bad Folks will find out how to do) to try to reduce the risks of terrorism/ other threats. By the way - your chance of being impacted by those threats has been independently and verifiably assessed as (insert number here).'

Somehow I don't see them asking the second question though - they'll carry on with the first one. Sigh...

I remember reading somrthing...

... once. Something Oppenheimer (or it might have been someone else) said after the atom bomb was tested, or after it was publicly used. Whoever it was, they said it wasn't the 'spies', the Fuchs et al, that gave the atom bomb to other nations. I mean, yes, those folk maybe speeded things up a little - but they didn't 'give the secret away'.

The Americans did.

Because, whoever it was said, it wasn't 'how' to build an atom bomb that was hard - any halfway decent physicist could do that. But they could only do it <u>once they knew it could be done</u>. Or rather, it was much easier to start, to get funding, to put a project together, when the people paying you knew you weren;t just going blue-sky - you were just going to repeat something pretty obviously able to succeed.

Backdoor encryption? It could be just like that.

If you're a nation state, or a criminal, or script kiddie in your mom's basement, yes. You can go looking for possible security holes in all kinds of things. But if you're a _real_ black hat? Well, if you know Guv'mint X insists on backdoors, and Guv'mint X allows Product Y to be used? Well, you know the only reason you don;t know the backdoor into Product Y is because you haven't found it yet. Because whether they admit it or not, whether they publish it or not, just by allowing Product Y to be used, Guv'mint X is telling you the door is there to be found.

And, just like the atomic bomb, knowing the door is there will likely make it a damn sight easier to get the resources, or project approval, or just sheer bloody mindedness that will _let_ you find it.

Because you know it's there.

And it won't just be one - one hypothetical black hat, I mean. When folk _knew_ there was gold in the Klondike, they didn't say 'hey, let's not go there! Let's go look at some other damn river, it'll be quieter!'

No.

They Rushed.

They Rushed, and even if not everybody found gold, a lot did. But the Klondike? It was never the same again, and after a while - it was dead.

So, yeah. Guv'mint approved apps. With Top Secret Guv'mint backdoors. Because sometimes, all you need to know is where the gold exists - finding it's the easy part.

Sigh...

So...

... Lloyds are announcing staff cuts, and sending their IT work to IBM. Who, um, are announcing staff cuts...

Sigh.

Text search challenge...

... for government and corporate announcements.

"The safety of the travelling public is our highest priority"

I wonder what would happen if someone searched all available material for the phrase 'is our highest priority'? I'm willing to bet there'd be rather more than one 'thing' apparently 'highest' on the priority list.

Sigh...

During the process, Democratic Party members tried to introduce a number of amendments to the legislation, including:

Employers should be prohibited from discriminating based on the results.

So. Based on the voting pattern demonstrated, the Republican members appear to want to preserve options for employers and health insurance providers to sell health information, demand family member genetic information and discriminate based on genetic testing results. Because, of course, all of those points 'deliver more choice for working families.'

Yes - and I suppose offering your next mugging victim a choice between a bullet in the head or a blade in his back 'delivers more choice.' Whether that makes it a Good Thing(tm) is a rather different question.

Sigh...

OK - let's try....

... a small modification:

"Comey said that America's founding fathers had set down that there is a right to (bear arms) but that the government has a right to intrude in the name of security. It was part of a 200-year old "bargain of ordered liberty," he opined ..."

Now who thinks _that_ bird would fly very far in the US of A? And if it wouldn't, then why should his comment on 'privacy'?

Oh, bugger it. If (or rather, when) the howling masses let this sort of stuff happen, we really are our own worst enemies. Sigh...

So the secret people...

... who can't keep their own 'secrets', um, secret, want 'backdoors' into everything so they can make sure they don't keep _our_ secrets?

Because, obviously, those backdoors will _never_ be leaked, right? Er... right?

Sigh...

And this...

... should be a salutory lesson for 'authorities' who want 'secret, impenetrable to unauthorised users' backdoors into security protocols and the like. Because 'secret' doesn't stay that way, and 'impenetrable' isn't - especially when 'authorised' users can become or act as 'unauthorised' any time they choose.

Sigh...

Scope creep...

... it's a right bugger :-(.

And I don't think any jurisdiction has a great deal to be pleased about in this context. Or, more likely, they all feel very pleased indeed and are chortling into their double scotches (or bourbons, or alternative of choice in locale of relevance).

To use the example here - FISA being 'only, absolutely, definitely about nasty foreign folk, and even then only about Big Bad Threats', morphing into a way to track car thieves and, for all I know, people who forget to take library books back. To use another - from the UK - RIPA being passed for much the same justifications as FISA, but turning into a way for town councils to get nasty about folk who don't put their garbage out on the right day. Or try to send their children to the 'wrong' schools.

Sigh. Or grump. One of those. Probably both... :-(.

If I may...

"But the desktop is arguably the only market in which Linux has not done exceedingly well."

While I understand the 'market' and 'desktop' under discussion in Munich is a more corporate one, taking the words as quoted above at their face value I'd suggest the mid to high end gaming one, a market inhabited by creatures who often have money to spend and spend it (whether on hardware or software) is _not_ in fact one in which Linux has done 'exceedingly well'. at least, not so far. I would therefore contest the view stated. Of course, I'm an Idiot... (blush).

If I may...

... "New US Net Non-Neutrality law coming 'within three months' - advisor

What, cynical? _Moi_?

As a Matt-er of fact...

... much as I'd love to see the good Mr Tennant back (highly unlikely), or even Mr Smith (I've read he's said he'd like to come back) - can I go with another Matt? Constantine meets the Doctor, shabby raincoat and all - Matt Ryan! :-)

The thing that...

... pushes my buttons isn't 'Wheeler right, Pai wrong'. It isn't 'Pai right, Wheeler wrong'.

Nope - it's @$^ metrics!

One of the basic tenets I was taught back when they didn't actually teach you how to write Business Cases, because you just followed Bob (or Jane), who'd written great ones for years, round and watched how they did it, was just that. Metrics. That you had to identify, _in_advance_, how you were going to measure success or failure, over what time those measurements would be taken, who would measure and how. And not only identify it, but publish it and get buy in - again, _in_advance_ - from interested parties and consumers. And then live or die by those metrics.

Where are the advance, agreed metrics to decide/ prove ('prove' in the sense of 'test') the chosen solution path is working, or indeed isn't? You know, the ones both the money men _and_ the public can look at, read results of and use to make future decisions?

Or maybe it's Door B. You know - the 'modern' way? That is, just do it whatever partisan choice says must be done, wait a while, then look for anything that looks like it measures better today than yesterday (whether it has anything to do with the 'solution' or not) and call it a win?

Sigh. I know. Door B, right? Can I cry now?

Ah, me...

... memories of lying on the floor each morning at the Tech College I worked in, flipping lines of bat switches in sequence to boot up the PDP-8. Bugger, I'm getting old...

Glory Road, Chapter 17, Doctor Rufo

Sigh. No - I'm not going to put the quote here. I'll put something else. How about 'impossible questions, 101'. Here goes:

Q1: Which of these three tenets do you hold most true?

A: Democracy leads to the greater good.

B: Democracy leads to the greater bad

C: Democracy is irrelevant, because nobody can agree WTF it means.

Answers that do not include a definition 'democracy' will get zero marks.

Answers that define 'electoral systems' instead of 'democracy' will get zero marks.

All students who actually try to answer the question will be submitted for immediate psychiatric evaluation.

Sigh. I know. I'm an Idiot... :-(.

On a more...

... (or indeed less, from the perspective of those here (maple flavoured blush)), it makes me wonder if this might finally spur ACX into accepting authors/ producers beyond those they currently do (US based, UK based and, I think, Australian).

Still, none of that is in any way Trump-ian, so likely not relevant to the subject at hand :-) :-(.

'We...

... have to let this one go, because if we say how we got him, we might jeapordise future investigations'.

Time passes.

Future investigations are, um, investigated.

'We, um, have to let this one go, because if we say how we got him, we might jeapordise future investigations.'

What's wrong with this picture? To me, pretty much everything. The Bad People don't get put away, and the Bad Things keep happening. So what if telling folk how you got the evidence _does_ increase the chance the Bad People won't fall for it next time? At least _some_ Bad People get put away.

Yes, I know. Bigger fish to fry and all that. But if you know you won;t wan t to put your evidence on the table, don;t bother prosecuting. And if you're not in the business of prosecuting? Get off my bloody law-enforcement lawn!

I know. I'm an Idiot... sigh.

I wonder if...

... the man who (for once rightly) appears to have said 'no computer is safe' has considered the potential for a Twitter account known to be some sort of official organ of the US Presidency to be hijacked? We've already seen possible impacts on stock prices from Trump-eets - I'm sure other possibilities suggest themselves.

Of course, it's possible Twitter accounts are absolutely secure, with no possibility of being faked or stolen. And it's also possible I might win the lottery this week - but I'm not holding my breath.

My apologies to those...

... who have no doubt lived through similar experiences in years past, and posted them above. But I still grind my teeth (those few I have left) from time to time when I remember a home visit I made to one of the profs at the Tech College mad enough to employ me.

The individual in question explained to me he'd been doing some disk house keeping on his state of the art 10Gb hard drive Olivetti PC. Clearing up some old files. Deleting them. From the command prompt.

I know. I suppose it wasn't _his_ fault WordStar let you use * as a file name character. And even *.*. And yes. He'd used that as a name for one of his files. Sigh...

So. His machine was in an ongoing state of 'I'm buggered'. So I asked him if he still had the release floppies he'd got with the machine. Of course, I was expecting something like 'no'. But lo! Very meticulous he was! He said 'of course', and went to get them. I figured, maybe half an hour and I'd be done.

Then he bought them. The floppies. All neatly indexed, with little labels on them. In ring binders. Guess how he'd put them in the ring binders. anyone who suggests 'in little packet sleeves with neat pairs of punched holes in them' will be absolutely right. So long as they delete the 'in little packet sleeves with' bit.

AAAARGH!

Hmmm...

"A post by CEO Lior Tal says the company is closing its Seattle office and consolidating a single Palo Alto abode... Folks who work in Seattle will be offered the chance to make the move south."

https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-seattle-rent-trends/

As of October 2016, average apartment rent within the city of of Seattle, WA is $2133.

As of October 2016, average apartment rent within the city of of Palo Alto, CA is $3224

So they're giving those staff 'offered the chance' generous pay rises too, huh? Huh?

Ah. Riiight...

And once again...

... we see (or at least, it looks like to me) that while the TLAs and police forces make their cases for having even more data,and more, and more and, well, _more_ - they can't necessarily make the best use of what they already have. Without in any way intending to be facetious or to minimise the real prices that can be paid by those at risk, whether it's needles in haystacks, or a thirteen year old girl in a house with three men there's bugger all point in having the data if the right people don't find it and act on it in a timely fashion? Or if they aren't _able_ to, because of limitation in the systems? Well, adding more bloody data isn't going to help!

I know. I'm ranting. And blethering. But while the right data _can_ be a good thing? sometimes it's all too easy to have too much of it - and that's apart from when it doesn't not get to the right people, or isn't assessed appropriately when it does. And if it doesn't get assessed properly - maybe the 'right' people are the ones who shouldn't be let any bloody where near it..

I think I'd better shut up now. Nurse! The red pill! Sigh...

And as well as all...

... the other reasons mentioned here why this is as dumb as it really is - what happens when/ if a new 'place drones aren't allowed to go' is built or torn down? A place not on the extant 'hard coded' list of Bad Places(tm)? World wide recall of all drones, by authority of HMG (which doesn't have any. mostly) to jave the list updated?

Sigh.

"Barely a day goes by without a major security breach coming to light..."

... and the business that is breached not suffering any business penalty worth mentioning.

No. The bit above _wasn't_ part of his quote. Which doesn't stop it being true.

Is it possible, therefore, that those who count beans decide the cost of effective, regularly reviewed and improved security isn't worth a single one of the mgic beans they so avidly count?

Could be. Just possibly.

"However, what we really need is a fundamental rethink of the basic security protocols,"

That's one approach. But it will take time and cost magic beans. And even if it happens, it's not a one-time thing - it needs to be done, frequently reviewed and assessed in line with new threats, done again and repeated forever.

Which, in this Idiot's view, ain't gonna happen while _not_ doing it doesn't impact the beans. HARD.And NOW.

Yes. I know. I'm shouting. Mostly because I don;t think anyone not reading these pages is listening... sigh.

How long...

... before some 'genius' comes up with the (to them) obvious answer?

Bolt reported that due to “a mixture of human error and [Home Office] data quality

Wait for it. "We can fix this! We'll fire all the humans (so less 'human error'), and you (parliament) can give us more powers to gather more data! If we gather enough, then some of it will be better quality, right?"

Sigh.

So...

... and a genuine question, since I know bugger all about the field - what, if anything, does deciding there's ten times as much baryonic 'stuff' out there as we previously thought imply for the need/ calculations in respect of dark matter/ energy?

And...

... the consequences to MBS will be?

As in, like, _real_ consequences? And I'm not asking if MBS will actually _suffer_ any real, genuinely significant consequences. Just whether there are any.

Er - hello?

Riiiiiight.

But is it possible there might be negative consequences for/ visited upon the _subjects_ ('owners' seems a somewhat meaningless word, given the context) of the data? The real people the data identifies, classifies or provides information on? And I'm not asking if it's going to happen - just if it's possible.

Now - what are the odds that the answers to both the preceding questions are the same?

No. I didn't think so.

Sigh...