Friday Squid Blogging: SQUID Band

A bagpipe and drum band:

SQUID transforms traditional Bagpipe and Drum Band entertainment into a multi-sensory rush of excitement, featuring high energy bagpipes, pop music influences and visually stunning percussion!

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Tags: squid

Posted on March 14, 2025 at 5:03 PM • 4 Comments

Comments

Steve • March 14, 2025 5:37 PM

If I might, I’d like to note the passing of the person responsible for the likely inspiration for Friday Squid Blogging, Kevin Drum, aka Calpundit, who since 2002 blogged and brought us Friday Cat Blogging.

I didn’t personally know Kevin, though I followed him for years as he moved from his own site to the Washington Monthly to Mother Jones and back to his own site, though we did correspond a few times as I had the temerity to gently chide him on some of his uses of regression curves and he was kind enough to politely respond.

wood stove • March 14, 2025 6:27 PM

Mark Klein, AT&T Whistleblower Who Revealed NSA Mass Spying, Has Died

https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/12/2127218/mark-klein-att-whistleblower-who-revealed-nsa-mass-spying-has-died

“An anonymous reader quotes a report from the EFF:

EFF is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mark Klein, a bona fide hero who risked civil liability and criminal prosecution to help expose a massive spying program that violated the rights of millions of Americans.

Mark didn’t set out to change the world. For 22 years, he was a telecommunications technician for AT&T, most of that in San Francisco. But he always had a strong sense of right and wrong and a commitment to privacy. When the New York Times reported in late 2005 that the NSA was engaging in spying inside the U.S., Mark realized that he had witnessed how it was happening. He also realized that the President was not telling Americans the truth about the program. And, though newly retired, he knew that he had to do something. He showed up at EFF’s front door in early 2006 with a simple question: “Do you folks care about privacy?”

We did. And what Mark told us changed everything. Through his work, Mark had learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) had installed a secret, secure room at AT&T’s central office in San Francisco, called Room 641A. Mark was assigned to connect circuits carrying Internet data to optical “splitters” that sat just outside of the secret NSA room but were hardwired into it. Those splitters — as well as similar ones in cities around the U.S. — made a copy of all data going through those circuits and delivered it into the secret room.

Mark not only saw how it works, he had the documents to prove it. He brought us over a hundred pages of authenticated AT&T schematic diagrams and tables. Mark also shared this information with major media outlets, numerous Congressional staffers, and at least two senators personally. One, Senator Chris Dodd, took the floor of the Senate to acknowledge Mark as the great American hero he was.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/memoriam-mark-klein-att-whistleblower-about-nsa-mass-spying

Previously Related:
https://slashdot.org/story/06/05/18/1626248/the-att-whistleblowers-evidence

https://slashdot.org/story/06/05/22/132206/wired-releases-full-text-of-att-nsa-document

Clive Robinson • March 14, 2025 11:59 PM

@ Bruce, ALL,

In an earlier posting I mentioned Ross Anderson, who some of you know was quite fond of the pipes and traditional Scottish music.

Well you can connect him to Squid via a young lady called Jane Espie who the last time I saw her was a “Theater Nurse” at the Victoria Hospital in Kircaldy in Fife Scotland just over the famous “Forth Railway bridge” from Edinburgh.

As I’ve mentioned I’ve relatives in Kircaldy and on one occasion I had the misfortune to become seriously in need of medical attention and ended up in the Victoria Hospital.

A face with a button nose beneath a green scrubs cap enquired as to my well being as I lay there on a gurney looking not unlike a wood pile under a tarp, with a dead fox sticking out at one end 😉

Well when she turned slightly in profile I realised who she was, and I said “Your the Phantom Piper from Celtica?” To which she grinned actually quite shyly.

For those who don’r know Celtica is a high energy pipes and drum rock band that tours all over the world, but Canada and the US are repeat favourites. And whilst doing tours they also drop in on “Scot-Fests” which is where they crossed paths with a group that was back then called “Tasty Squid” from “New Scotland” that was three Drummers and a Piper.

Well Jane is “sponsored” by “McCallum Bagpipes” who Ross was known to frequent on the odd occasion.

So as the used to say on the radio program “chain made”.

But… It was not just Jane at the Victoria that put this old lug back on the road…

Jane made a Covid Video to honour the NHS workers in Fife and it includes a few other faces from the Victoria I am grateful to,

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4bjGpOjdmA4

I wish them all well.

Clive Robinson • March 15, 2025 4:57 AM