Source: www.schneier.com – Author: Bruce Schneier
Comments
&ers •
@ALL
Common sense won.
hxxps://news.err.ee/1609202272/interior-abandons-plan-to-ban-non-personalized-prepaid-sim-cards
How is this at your side? Mandatory? Clive, SLF, etc?
vas pup •
Israel’s StemRad inks $4.5m contract to shield US troops from gamma radiation
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-stemrad-inks-4-5m-contract-to-shield-us-troops-from-gamma-radiation/
“Israeli-American company has developed shielding technology gear to protect first responders, defense forces, and space explorers from deadly radiation and nuclear threats.
Israeli-developed technology will be protecting US troops against potentially lethal gamma radiation and help them to be better prepared for a nuclear incident on American soil.
StemRad, a developer of Israeli-made radiation protection suits for space explorers, emergency responders, defense forces, nuclear industry workers, and and medical personnel, has secured a $4.5 million contract with the US Department of Defense for the acquisition of its radiation protection shields for the US National Guard.
As part of the contract, the Israeli-American company will provide 630 of its protective 360 Gamma belts to soldiers and airmen tasked with responding in cases of domestic radiological incidents, such as dirty bombs, terrorist or military attacks, or accidents that can include a nuclear reactor meltdown. In addition, StemRad will provide onsite training at the National Guard Consequence Management Support Center in Lexington, Kentucky.
StemRad’s technology doesn’t try to protect the whole body, but aims to selectively protect organs with exceptional sensitivity to radiation, like bone marrow in the hip and in the vertebrae, and the gastrointestinal system.
Fifty percent of the body’s bone marrow is located in the groin and midsection areas — the parts StemRad suits protects, ensuring that workers and first responders are protected against the effects of radiation sickness but are able to maintain freedom of movement needed to assist others.
StemRad’s technology has also been tested in space. NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I space mission launched its debut flight, aboard which were dummies wearing the company’s AstroRad, an anti-radiation suit co-developed with US defense giant Lockheed Martin to protect vital organs from gamma radiation.”
Clive Robinson •
@ &ers, ALL
Re : Anonymous prepaid SIM cards.
“How is this at your side? Mandatory?”
Last time I looked which was a while ago you could still buy £5 SIMs off of market stalls and the like in London for cash and just stick them in a phone.
The thing is anonymous SIMs do not remain so for very long, unless all people in a closed comms group practice very good OpSec.
Which makes me suspicious of Governments that demand non-anonymous SIMs. Because most people can not practice any kind of Comms OpSec even if their life depended on it.
So why do it…
My view is that it’s like cheap locks on doors,
“Not to deter crooks, but To keep honest people honest”.
ResearcherZero •
On sh–t…
To control and purify the body, or it’s ‘breeding’ is an utter delusion. We have around 20-25,000 genes in each of our cells, but the human microbiome potentially holds 500 times more.
The early 2000s was a period of longing and nostalgia. A wanting of escape into the past. Where as today is dominated by a fear of change and the rapid development of technology. Brideshead Revisited itself was set in a moment in time, an era of empire, and the death of innocence. But the leaves, they must fall from the trees. You cannot outrun it, or shelter from it. You can only bend with it, or snap and break under it’s weight. All horses must retire, and race horses they go to the knackers to be made into pet food, or to the glue factory. Their breeding is irrelevant.
In fact such ideas themselves hide a long history of genetic disorders within so called ‘pure breeds’, due entirely to their lack of genetic diversity and attempts to ‘purify’ and control traits.
‘https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/us/politics/trump-blood-comments.html
“Thousands of microscopic organisms share our bodies, influencing our behaviour in ways stranger than you could imagine. Your body is crawling with bacteria and fungi.”
The human body contains trillions of microorganisms — outnumbering human cells by 10 to 1. Therefor you cannot remain afraid of the dirt under your feet. You breath it. As you are it and it is you.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/human-microbiome
“this plethora of microbes contribute more genes responsible for human survival than humans contribute”
‘https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-human-microbiome-project-defines-normal-bacterial-makeup-body
“The Giuliani case was about more than defamation. It was about power.”
Giuliani urged Trump to push fraud claims on election night. He claimed that they wheeled suitcases of illegal ballots out from under tables after counting had concluded at State Farm Arena, that they were passing around USB drives and that they created a fake water main break. He alone is entirely responsible for his own fate.
“At issue in the case wasn’t really the fact that Giuliani lied, but whom he lied about. It was a case about the way powerful people can use their influence to destroy the reputations of the average person.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/17/rudy-giuliani-verdict-defamation-reputations
ResearcherZero •
@Clive @ALL
You put the sim card in a phone in your pocket, so in an emergency you can be found.
Most can’t afford good OpSec, and neither are they afforded it. The private tennis club or golf club is a decidedly white experience, with a similarly terrible dress code. Except for that one time someone torched one of our local private clubs to the ground out of spite.
The fire though disappointing, did not really matter because it was one of many and $.
It is our land. We own (most of) it, and we stole from someone else before you. Or we purchased it from someone who stole it from someone else, as we were here first (sort of).
Structural privilege is considered the “norm,” and people and belief systems that fall outside that norm are essentially considered outsiders or not “fully [insert country].”
“Privilege, simply put, is societally granted, unearned advantages accorded to some people and not others.” (Our many private clubs for example.)
‘https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching/wp-content/uploads/sites/853/2021/08/An-Instructors-Guide-to-Understanding-Privilege-Draft.pdf
[A] debtor is responsible for a ‘willful’ injury when he or she commits an intentional act the purpose of which is to cause injury or which is substantially certain to cause injury.”
“Malicious” is defined as “wrongful and without just cause or excessive even in the absence of personal hatred, spite or ill-will.” In re Walker, 48 F.3d 1161 (11th Cir. 1995). To establish malice, “a showing of specific intent to harm another is not necessary.” In re Ikner, 883 F.2d. 986 (11th Cir 1989).
11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6). does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt—
for willful and malicious injury by the debtor to another entity
‘https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/523
(this is the law as written, not legal advice)
Jonathan Wilson •
Australia introduced mandatory ID checks for purchasing a SIM card at some point. I believe there was a criminal case going on (terrorist maybe) that caused the government to tighten the rules but I can’t find anything about the details at this point.
ResearcherZero •
If you own a lot of stuff, accordingly you need more privacy and tax cuts.
Australia’s richest 1% pocketed [only] $150,000 a minute over past decade.
Former PM Scott Morrison said it best when he was the treasurer:
“There is a new divide — the taxed and the taxed-nots.”
“”On current settings, more Australians today are likely to go through their entire lives without ever paying tax than for generations and more Australians are likely today to be net beneficiaries of the Government than contributors — never paying more tax than they receive in government payments.” ~ ScoMo (just a common bloke)
–
However good leaders resist their own tendency to exercise power.
“My father has been dead for five years so we were understandably shocked and upset,” she said.
The legislation doesn’t currently consider whether you will be put in a position of financial vulnerability.
‘https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/20/robotax-ato-robodebt-letters-on-hold-tax-debt-retiree
ResearcherZero •
@Jonathan Wilson
Normally intelligence agencies look into those kind of things, but they do have different investigatory powers in Australia. They need a warrant, the conditions are strict compared with police, and they have no powers of arrest. Passing on details to police, governed by secrecy laws can be complicated at times. Some existing evidence of a crime needs to be provided, or at least the intention to commit one needs to be provided.
So being able to intercept communications does help. Beyond that I could not say.
–
“The normalization of this type of violent rhetoric — and lack of remedial action by social media entities — is cause for significant concern.”
‘https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/dec/17/court-watchers-cite-political-rhetoric-for-increas/
The vast majority of the culprits – more than 90% – are male.
‘https://advocatechannel.com/election-officials-violent-threats-democracy
The timing, he says, couldn’t be worse.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4343187-fbi-chief-were-working-around-the-clock-to-disrupt-potential-attacks-inspired-by-hamas/
ResearcherZero •
@Jonathan Wilson
While intelligence agencies and other departments are experiencing a huge increase in workload. In the U.S. at least, many are facing attempts from Congress to wind back their powers. The best way to do it would be to improve targeted collection, but maybe they don’t want to explain the details of how the various collection systems work.
Although explaining technical details to the bunch in the political theatre is no cake walk. I doubt many of them could follow the flow charts, let alone pay attention long enough to look at them. And maybe some just don’t care.
The term ‘cluster-f–k’ springs to mind.
–
Hamas leaders say that their goal was to trigger this very response and that they’re still hoping for a bigger war.
‘https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/hamas-leaders-sinwar-israel-gaza.html
“Bogdanov’s role in the link between Russia-Hamas is central. He has been in charge of the relationship on a day-to-day basis for many years, regularly meeting its leaders in Moscow and Qatar. Bogdanov has also been entrusted by Putin to undertake sensitive diplomatic missions with China, among other major actors, to support Russia’s Mideast policies.”
They also include senior members of Hamas’ military leadership, such as Husam Badran and Saleh al-Arouri. Badran formerly led Hamas’ military wing in the West Bank, where he planned suicide bombings during the Second Intifada, including the infamous 2001 Dolphinarium discotheque massacre in Tel Aviv, which killed 21 young Israelis. Al-Arouri, characterized by the Israeli government’s public intelligence center as number two in Hamas overall, founded its military wing and directs the group’s military and terrorist activities. He also notably has close, long-standing ties with Iran.
Mr. Bogdanov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, met with Hamas leadership again this week. Putin was thanked again by Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks.
https://www.mei.edu/publications/essential-questions-about-russia-hamas-link-evidence-and-its-implications
On Thursday, Russia’s deputy foreign minister met with Hamas leaders. Since October 7, Moscow has clearly adopted an anti-Israel stance in the hope of weakening the West’s support of Ukraine.
Bogdanov had also received the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani on the same day, according to Russian diplomacy.
‘https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/10/27/on-moscow-visit-hamas-leaders-rule-out-release-of-hostages-without-a-ceasefire_6207892_4.html
ResearcherZero •
There are multiple new Russian, Iranian and Chinese campaigns to collect intel also taking place.
shally •
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JonKnowsNothing •
@ResearcherZero, All
re: ROBOTAX the five-year retention period most taxpayers are required to keep records.
In the USA, there is the fine print that most people never get to, I’m pretty sure the same is true in other countries.
- Minimum Retention Period is when there are no issues with the tax return
- Maximum Retention Period is Eternity
There is no limitation, if there are any questions, issues, concerns, legal alterations in laws, criminal activities etc about the taxes owed.
The minimum is technically designed so that you have zero proofs about what you claimed on the forms, or what your CPA-Tax Preparer put down. CPA-Tax Preparers only put down what you tell them, although in the USA, you must now provide digital images of all related documentation.
The Windrush folks found out about this when Teresa May, as Home Secretary, shredded all their historical proofs of UK citizenship going back more than 30years. Those proofs where held by the UK Gov, primarily ships manifests detailing date of arrival (search Windrush Generation), which they shredded on her orders.
POOF go the PROOFS
RL anecdote tl;dr
There is a 2x or 3x public event that allows people to bring N boxes of paper work for shredding at no cost. It’s a popular event and people line up in their cars for the drive through.
The payment is that all the LEAs and 3Ls sit in a large command center van, with all their surveillance kit checking everyone in the line: LPRs, FaceID, etc. They get to play with all the toys in the box.
What you also lose is the required documentation should SHYTE happen: urban fire, flood, tornadoes (yes in California), not to mention other proofs you might need to present to get a drivers license, proof of an ADDRESS (which homeless do not have) and other sundry items you may need.
JonKnowsNothing •
@Clive, @ResearcherZero, All
re: ROBOVETDEBT clawbacks from 90yo military veterans
Another item in The Computer Made Us Do it. This version chasing legitimate military veterans over 90yo for “over payment” of their military pensions, and claiming claw backs
after
- a “complex and lengthy” investigation that required manual calculations , the department determined he had been over-payed
So… they are saying that someone got out pen and paper and doodled an answer? More likely they have a SS with internal calculations in hidden columns to manipulate the data.
I once had the unexpected not-pleasure of seeing such a SS in landscape 8pt filled with columns detailing why I was overpaid sick pay and demanding a claw back from a US Company Provided Health Care Benefit company. Lots of columns. No Formulas. Hard copy.
So, again the rhetorical question:
- WHO is writing this code?
Oh, righto. It’s an outsourced contract company with the poorest paid computer programmers, who get paid by the number of lines of code they can write in an hour. No need to ask any questions.
===
ht tp s://www.theguardian. com/australia-news/2023/dec/23/australias-veterans-department-apologises-for-any-distress-in-chasing-alleged-pension-overpayments
- The Department of Veterans’ Affairs
- chasing elderly Australians for alleged pension overpayments and has blamed a systems error for wrongly targeting those aged over 90
- 100-year-old second world war veteran … given 28 days to repay an alleged debt of more than $11,000
JonKnowsNothing •
@Clive, All
re: Panfamine: UK Cheeses in Canada (1)
There are a lot of crop failures, animal culls, wars and other reasons why some items are in short supply or no supply. This variation is a trade tariff (taxation) issue between UK and Canada.
- UK wants to sell specialty cheeses to Canada
- UK was able to sell the cheese to Canada when part of the EU
- UK has not been able to negotiate a new cheese export treaty with Canada
Aside, from the economic issues and taxation rates, an interesting item was
- Canadian buyers have been stockpiling British cheese in the run-up to the deadline but Canadian cheesemongers are expected to run out by spring.
While these are specialty cheeses, there is only a 6 months supply in Canada, held by individual resellers.
In the USA, our farm policy includes Dairy Support funds, where the US Gov buys the oversupply of milk, cheese, casein, butter to maintain a high retail market price. In theory the funds pay the Dairy Farmers to keep working, in reality it doesn’t work like that but it sounds good in election speeches.
Those items were never to be released into the consumer food chain because the whole purpose was to keep prices artificially high. Periodic changes in the laws, now allow some of these types of government stock piled products to be released through government channels to county food bank coordinators and on to the various food bank distribution organizations to people standing in line for a brick (500g) of cheese. (2)
===
1)
ht tps://www.theguardian. com /politics/2023/dec/23/hard-cheese-canada-rejects-british-attempt-to-secure-tariff-free-exports
- Hard cheese: Canada rejects British attempt to secure tariff-free exports
-
BREXIT Failure
-
245% duty
-
£50 cost to every kilogram of UK cheese
2)
note: An earlier version of USGov Food Stockpile Distribution
h ttps://www.history.c o m/news/government-cheese-dairy-farmers-reagan
- Updated: August 25, 2023 | Original: July 26, 2018
- How the US Ended Up With Warehouses Full of Government Cheese
- In the early 1980s, the U.S. government distributed some 300 million pounds of pungent-smelling processed cheese that had been produced with federal funds
JonKnowsNothing •
@Clive, @SpaceLifeForm, All
re: JN.1 COVID global outbreak
MSM report on CDC released information about JN.1 in USA & California
- JN.1, is now estimated to account for roughly 44% of COVID-19 cases nationally (USA)
- JN.1’s continued growth suggests that the variant is either more transmissible or better at evading our immune systems
- World Health Organization this week classified JN.1 as a “variant of interest”
- week ending Dec. 16, there were 2,924 new coronavirus-positive hospital admissions in California up nearly 50%
- Triple-deminc Flu, RSV, COVID
- 24 new COVID outbreaks in skilled nursing facilities [note: reporting requirements for SNF allow them to not report C19 outbreaks until they they hit a higher threshold of cases. Previously 10 cases in a facility. In a county 100 cases in SNF facilities (10*10) was the report threshold.]
- Fresno County California
-
- hospitals are operating at … 40% over capacity
-
- holding admitted patients in their emergency department for up to four days
-
- using conference rooms and non-patient areas to hold patients
-
- Emergency room waiting times are now routinely exceeding 10 hours
- Nationally about 1,000 coronavirus-infected people a week are dying
- CDC reaffirmed that COVID rebound can happen with or without taking COVID drugs
- wear a mask, staying home when sick and avoiding people who are ill [not happening and not going to happen]
Kaiser Lab COVID Test location is inside their clinic and hospital. You have to walk through the complex, past all the people standing in line for medications at the pharmacy, past all the open bullpens of people waiting for MD appoints, queue inside the close-room Lab area, use a designated but common to all COVID testers restroom for self swabbing and leaving the swap in the lab kiosk.
===
ht tps://www.latimes. c o m /california/story/2023-12-23/why-the-new-coronavirus-strain-jn-1-may-be-behind-californias-covid-uptick
- A new coronavirus variant may be behind California’s COVID rise
- New coronavirus variant JN.1 likely partly to blame
lurker •
@JonKnowsNothing
JN1 currently ~15% of cases here but increasing ~15%/mth. Testing and reporting now voluntary, so wastewater checks are the only reliable indicator, plus the rapid decline in stocks of Paxlovid. Govt urging booster shots, but current vax design is at least 15 mths old. Only Pfz is availablbe through public program, and the “latest” version valid against XBB1.5 will be available next (sth) winter.
‘https://www.rnz.co.nz/tags/covid-19
AL •
In the area of AI, I just became aware that AI can run on a PC without any cloud.
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/11/introducing-llamafile/
I’m running it now in a sandbox and it’s working just ducky, considering we’re in the top of the 1st inning on this. That said, there is a VirusTotal report that isn’t entirely clean.
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/af25718508cbc6af659366058abb9c106bbdac8220babd8a2e2176b07cfd2544
I don’t run the all-in-one file, I run llamafile.exe and a LLM. My batch file looks like this:
start "LLAMA" /D . llamafile.exe -m mistral-7b-instruct-v0.2.Q5_K_M.gguf -c 2048 -ngl 24 -t 8 --host 127.0.0.1 --nobrowser --no-mmap
Once started, I can access the AI at http://localhost:8080/
Still playing around with it, but it’s quite an eyeopener. I have a 16GB memory box. There are other alternatives to llamafile that I haven’t checked out.
The big takeaway I see is, a user can make inquiries without a cloud provider building a dossier on that user. Right now, I’ve downloaded 6 LLMs. Makes me want to go out and get a 64GB box, or larger so I can load up a larger LLM. But, there is a lot of information in the 7b LLMs that run about 5GB, and I can see these LLMs becoming specialized.
Got a medical question, fire up the medical LLM. Need to code, fire up the coding LLM. Right now, these LLMs seem to be all-in-one affairs. But, the cat is out of the bag. The horse has bolted from the barn. 😊
Justhanging •
Talking about sim cards, this is some scary stuff.
With $20 of Gear from Amazon, Nearly Anyone Can Make This IMSI-Catcher in 30 Minutes
Surveillance takes on different character when it trickles down to more ordinary, everyday users. The significance and threat from IMSI-catchers is multiplied when a lot more people can deploy one using cheap tech from Amazon and free code from Github.
With some dirt cheap tech I bought from Amazon and 30-minutes of set-up time, I was streaming sensitive information from phones all around me. IMSIs, the unique identifier given to each SIM card, can be used to confirm whether someone is in a particular area. They can also be used as part of another attack to take over a person’s phone number and redirect their text messages. Obtaining this information was incredibly easy, even for a non-expert.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/gy7qm9/how-i-made-imsi-catcher-cheap-amazon-github
Jelo 117 •
God Jul och Gott Nytt År !
While sitting in a cozy chair wearing a warm bulky sweater and drinking your glögg, be sure to read George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin, an archetypal security tale.
pup vas •
How to embrace uncertainty
https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-face-uncertain-situations-and-embrace-opportunity
=Key points – How to embrace uncertainty
Uncertain situations are inevitable. From waiting for a call back to anticipating important test results, everyone faces situations with uncertain outcomes. Not knowing what will happen can be challenging.
Uncertainty doesn’t have to be so daunting. Many people worry intensely about or try to escape uncertain situations. But developing a more optimistic outlook and learning to tolerate uncertainty can make these situations easier to face.
Be your own defense attorney. Reflecting on past failures or disappointments, identify reasons for each outcome that were unique to that situation – rather than reflecting a permanent problem.
Develop a ‘can do’ attitude. Think of situations with uncertain outcomes as challenges to be met – and list specific ways to overcome the difficulties they pose.
Devise alternatives. Reduce your emotional dependence on the outcomes of uncertain situations by listing alternative courses of action that you can take if the worst were to happen.
Practice mindfulness. Take some time to simply observe the thoughts and feelings that an uncertain situation brings up. Cultivate a more relaxed state of mind with regular mindfulness meditation.=
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