Posts by Jellied Eel

Iranian news service claims drone strikes on AWS were deliberate, to probe for US datacenter dependencies

Re: Different analysis

From analysis I've seen (which convinced me, but then what do I know?) this was an attack on the Gulf States not the US...

...Of course, there's also another explanation. There is no plan. The Iranian foreign minister gave an interview a couple of days ago and was asked about the bombing of Oman. They'd not given permission for the US to use their bases and had been mediating between the US and Iran - but got attacked anyway.

What do we know, indeed. But what we do know is that Iran stated clearly and repeatedly that if the US attacked it, it would retaliate and attack US bases and interests anywhere in range. So Oman has US bases and other interests, so those were attacked. If Amazon had contracts with the US government (or Israel), then their facilities become dual-use and legitimate targets. Iran's strategy seems to be both causing direct pain to US interests, and political pain to countries that host US military facilities. And it might be working, eg-

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/drone-strike-drives-calls-end-british-military-presence-cyprus-2026-03-06/

NICOSIA, March 6 (Reuters) - A drone strike this week on a British air base in Cyprus has renewed calls for an end to British military presence on the ​Mediterranean island as many fear being dragged into the wider Iran conflict.

Cypriot politicians have long been uneasy with Britain's two air bases, ‌Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which have existed as sovereign British territory since Cyprus gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1960.

The bases have long been an issue with some Cypriot politicians, who're now exploiting the current situation. Cyprus can't unilaterally break the treaty, and given the fuss around Diego Garcia, the US won't want that to happen either.

However the IRGC do have form on attacking at a local level, without bothering to inform the rest of the Iranian government or military. So take your pick.

What did people expect to happen? This is always the problem with decapitation strikes because if you eliminate the leadership, who's left to negotiate with? Especially given Iran knew decapitation and regime change was the objective, so implemented their 'Mosaic' plan to provide autonomy to their forces. Hopefully those plans include stop conditions so if there's a ceasefire, they'll halt their attacks. But so far, none of the parties seem willing to halt the conflict and instead are escalating things.

So it could just be that someone in the IRGC (Revolutionary Guards) had a bad time in that hotel in Dubai that got hit.

Or it could be that Iran knew the US was moving people off-base and into hotels. Fairmont is Canadian, so unlikely that's the reason. Or it could just be that the hotel wasn't the target. Which is the usual problem when there's an awful lot of missiles flying around, including all the missile interceptors. What goes up must come down and one of the early videos showed a falling booster impacting. Wreckage from intercepts is going to land.. Somewhere, and even a successful intercept might leave a viable warhead, or just unspent fuel and some heavy components. This was a well-known concern from waaay back in the Gulf War with Patriots v Scuds. An intercept of a ballistic missile might knock it off its trajectory a little, but the wreckage is still going somewhere. With the added concern that if the payloads were chemical or biological, it might still spread those, albeit over probably a smaller area than an airburst.

(Also interesting that Iran seems to be firing some type of cluster missile at Israel, although the hot stuff could be debris or possibly decoys. Regular cluster bomblets wouldn't glow, and there seemed to be too many to be a powered MIRV.)

'Hundreds' of Iranian hacking attempts have hit surveillance cameras since the missile strikes

And Hezbollah based in Lebanon are already getting the kicking of their lives, with IDF preparing to go in with their very experienced ground army.

Bibi regularly 'mows the lawn' and bombs Lebanese apartment buildings at the drop of a kippah. Plus the IDF has frequently sent it's Army into Lebanon, and frequently taken pretty high losses. And this time, it's pretty much an existential crisis for Hezbollah, so you can expect them to fight hard. Also Israel is taking quite a kicking from Iran and its allies, but the media focuses on the damage to Iran rather than Israel for some reason.

Re: Sting in the tail

Yes, no doubt a hardcore of true fanatics amongst them will morph into classic terrorists type organizations but the majority of their soldiers will disperse when their pay and food and healthcare stops.

...

Indeed, but surely the alternative is far worse - ie Iran & its proxies continue doing what they are doing.

I think you're making the mistake of viewing COIN through a capitalist lens. So ok, more serious and organised paramilitaries like the Kurds or MEK might be motivated by money, or just need money and weapons to act as boots in the ground and take on Iranian government forces. But the real danger is the idealogues who'll strap on a bomb vest, firebomb a synagogue or drive a vehicle into a crowd of World Cup fans. They're not motivated by money, or need money, but by their idealogy, desire for revenge & might be fine with the idea of martyring themselves.

Which is along the lines of what Starmer said. You can't bring about regime change from the air, and you can't erase an ideology either.. quite the opposite, and just create more anger and potential martyrs. Plus one of the fears (or propaganda) has been that Iran's been infiltrating the West under the guise of refugees, asylum seekers or just illegals. We're going to find out whether that fear is true or not. But we've provided an awful lot of motivation, including symbology that terrorist groomers can use to recruit, eg-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim

Purim (Hebrew: פּוּרִים Pūrīmⓘ, lit. 'lots'[1][a]) is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the saving of the Jewish people by Queen Esther from annihilation at the hands of an official of the Achaemenid Empire named Haman, as it is recounted in the Book of Esther.

With the Achaemenid Empire being.. you guessed it.. Iran. Netanyahu ("G-d has given") has attempted to justify starting this war because he's always positioned Iran as an existential threat, and used that to justify terroism against Iran for decades. Then there's the US that's also had a hard-on for Iran ever since their revolution, and throwing out their puppets.. So sure, Iran hasn't played nicely with others, but then we've also provided a lot of provocation.

... which I guess might apply whether war's been officially declared or not (?).

Article 5 is optional and NATO members don't automatically have to dogpile. Plus whether there's enough justification, ie Article 5 doesn't apply if a NATO member is the agressor. Then things get a bit more complicated if Incirlik airbase was the target, and if that base is being used by the US to strike Iran.. Which is also the issue for Cyprus, especially now Starmer's authorised 'defensive' bombing by the US from those bases.. Which is also why the conflict has expanded, ie hitting places like Bahrain. Small country with a big US base supporting the US 5th Fleet.

And in this context, I'm not 100% on how the sinking of IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka (not the current theater), as it prepared to return to Iran after international military exercises organized by India, should be perceived (not to mention that second warship now seeking shelter in Sri Lanka -- could it surrender to anyone without a declaration of war? Should it just be sunk too?). That fog of war.

Sinking the Dina might have been a timing thing, ie starting the conflict during Ramandan and Purim, or just while Iranian assets were away for that exercise. The legalities are also why I keep pointing out the legal distinctions between an officially declared war, and an executive action or SMO, which this is. Which puts things into a bit of a grey area. Per an SMO, they're targets, but if Iranian ships are in Sri Lankan waters, that's a violation of their sovereignty, especially if they grant ships shelter. But then the US doesn't really care about the legalities, so might just sink ships anyway, becaise what can Sri Lanka do, other than make a strongly worded statement to the US, or UN.

Anyways, If Bashar al-Assad killed 100 of his own people in the Douma chemical attack (that got us rather pissed off),

If he did. Or if we state that CBW would be a 'red line'. Then guess what? Red line crosed in a rather dubious attack that was probably a false flag. But Assad is now gone from Syria, and it's now in the hands of an ISIL/AQ 'moderate terrorist' that used to have a $10m bounty on his head. Geopolitics gets messy like that.

Re: Sting in the tail

But they won't fight on if the money & weapons tap that is Tehran gets turned off.

The problem with starting holy wars is creating martyrs and then extremists who'll take up arms against the Satans. So more fanatics who'll chant the 'Death to America, Death to Israel' thing There were plenty of videos showiing Houthis doing this against.. err, the Saudis and helping themselves to weapons and equipment they captured or was abandoned. So we've provided thousands of kilos of kinetic incentives for fanatics to committ terrorist attacks against their opressors. So Israel bombs schools, nutjobs might shoot up synagogues in the US in retaliation.

And then there's a lot of weaponry floating around from past regime change operations like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan or even stuff given to Ukraine being sold on the black market. Or just dones with pipe bombs, or vehicle attacks. Money isn't a motivator or requirement for jihadis and there are plenty of ways to improvise weapons. So Houthis again and their home-made ballistic missiles. Iran didn't have to supply those missiles, only the designs. They might not be as effective as a Tomahawk, but they can be very deadly, if you're not too fussed about what they hit.

The blowback is going to keep our security services busy for a long time.

Iran all but vanishes from the global internet amid US-Israel strikes

Re: "the good sense to leave the US & Israel to slog it out"

The "nation building" crap that kept us in Afghanistan for 20 years is UNACCEPTABLE! Iranians will have to build their OWN nation after we completely destroy the regime and the army that OPPRESSES them.

Ah, the My Lai defence. We had to destroy the country to save it. But Israel and the US are the agressors and oppressors, so it's hardly suprising a lot of Iranians don't like them. Especially when Iran's been told that if they try to elect a new Ayatollah, he'll just be murdered. But such is geopolitics and high-explosive election interference. JCPOA was prretty much working, but along came Trump, scrapped it and put the sanctions back on. That's rather opressive.

But as for the plan, I posted this link in another topic-

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf

written in 2016. The US regime change plan has been a long time in the making.

Re: Another war for oil

It might help, no?

It might help if you put down your dogwhistle and learned the difference between anti-semitism and anti-zionism. Or just ask yourself why it is verbotten to criticise the actions of the Israeli state, esspecially when it's so murderous and ignores the rules of international law.

Re: Another war for oil

Careful, careful to not kill civilians.

By dropping 2,000lb bombs on apartment buildings in residential neighborhoods..

They've been bombing Hamas. Can you have a guess at why?

Israel needs liebensraum and Israel's envoys and developers like Witkoff can make billions building luxury apartments where Gaza used to be. But Israel bombs 'Hamas', 'Hezbollah', Syria and now of course Iran.

Or do Jewish kids not count?

Probably. The ones in the school in Iran can't any more. But such is politics and the dangers of religious fanatics like Bibi and ignoranuses like Witkoff and Kuchner.

Re: Another war for oil

Worst issue I have with the whole affair is that whilst it is far too easy to go down the start ramp in these wars, I can't see an exit ramp for USA, no way a regime change is going to happen without boots on the ground and that would be inviting another Iraq.

It's going much the same way as the '12 day war' did, except this time Iran's expanded their retaliation and started earlier. Trump could just say they've helped Israel with their mission and walk away, but I doubt Trump's ego would permit that. Neither would Bibi. But Iran's said no negotiations. Now Trump's said (per Bbc Live)-

"Their air defense, Air Force, Navy, and Leadership is gone," he writes, seemingly about Iranian officials, alongside a link to an opinion piece in the Washington Post about "the birth of the Trump Doctrine".

"They want to talk. I said 'Too Late!'"

Never try negotiating with narcissistic sociopaths I guess (which includes Bibi). But it also demonstrates the well-known problems with decapitation strikes, and why most sane countries don't do them. If you murder the leadership and keep bombing their replacements, who's left to negotiate with? So I guess the bombings will continue until morale improves. Or one or other side runs out of missiles and drones. Or perhaps other world leaders can talk some sense into Trump.

They really need to get their act together and impeach Trump or he really is going to be a Dictator - this is their last chance.

I don't think they could impeach Trump unless a lot of Republicans cross the house. Otherwise there wouldn't be enough votes. Plus on what basis? Being a f'ng idiot or acting in the interests of Israel probably isn't enough, unless US Senators & Congresscritters try for a treason charge. If not, there's the fairly wooly "high crimes and misdemeanors" charge that might be easier to stick, so presenting enough evidence of war crimes.

Re: Another war for oil

The problem with posts like yours, is that under the disgusting mask of antizionism always, always, lies the disgusting face of antisemitism. It's the same people with the same hate. Always.

Or the same people with the same hate for non-Jews use anti-semitism as a dog whistle to prevent any criticism of Israel. Which can include Jewish people who don't want their religion being used to justify the actions of the 'Jewish State'. Within Israel, people are criticising Bibi's bombing of Gaza, Lebanon and now Iran. The Knesset has both moderates, and Bibi's neocons, some of whom are very far-right and think Israel has the divine right to wipe Gaza off the map, along with the West Bank, Lebanon and helping themselves to large chunks of Syria. But then there's oil & gas in the waters off Gaza, and probably under the Golan Heights.

Or there's the need for living room. Or Israel's had a pretty rapid shift from an agrarian economy to a high-tech one, which presents some ancient and modern challenges, along with population growth in general. One of those challenges is access to water, for agriculture, industry or just to support the population. Israel's done some neat things with plant genetics to develop salt-tolerant crops, but it's also stolen land in defiance of UN treaties to get water access. And it has datacentres & industry that demands water, which means it's also very dependent on a few desalination plants that are vulnerable to attack. It's also very dependent on imported energy, which is also vulnerable.

And Bibi & Trump have now created an existential crisis for both Iran, and Israel. The US has some convoluted justification for declaring a not-war or SMO against Iran, ie Israel was going to pre-emptively attack Iran and try for regime change, so the US did the pre-emptive self-defence thing to defend Israel against the inevitable retaliation, which somehow makes this conflict legal. Or now they're bombing police stations, illegal, because those are war crimes. Not that that matters, because neither the US nor Israel recognise the authority of the ICC, and might makes right, right?

But if they somehow 'win', Trump and Bibi will get their place in history, just as they will if they lose. And I think a loss is inevitable because it's following the same regime change playbook, which relies on useful idiots, or 'moderate terrorists' to lead the coup. So in this case, probably this lot-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Mojahedin_Organization_of_Iran#Relationship_during_Trump_presidency

In 2017, the year before John Bolton became President Trump's National Security Adviser, Bolton addressed members of the MEK and said that they would celebrate in Tehran before 2019. By 2018, operatives of the MEK were believed to be still conducting covert operations inside Iran to overthrow Iran's government.

MEK had been a proscribed terrorist organisation, but that designation was lfited because you need 'moderate terrorists' to run the 'Arab Spring' coup-in-a-can playbook.. Which Iran is well aware of, has planned for and is why decapitation probably won't work. They've martyred Khamenei, which may have been intentional because he was old, ill and didn't appear to make any attempt to hide. Iranians are rather angry about this. Iran also implemented their 'Mosaic' plan, so less reliant on any chain of command to conduct operatons against Israel, US assets and interests, or suppress any internal dissent or coup attempts.

So I think it's shaping up to be a repeat of the Kurdish uprising in Iraq. Promised support, then support withdrawn and the Kurds left to get massacred. So per Bbc-

In a statement on Telegram, the IDF says "numerous munitions" were dropped on the Presidential Office and the Supreme National Security Council.

It adds that a military training institution and "additional key regime infrastructure" were also hit.

Woo. Yey. Empty buildings blown up because the normal inhabitants dispersed days ago.. Or as Starmer put it-

Sir Keir Starmer has told MPs that the government "does not believe in regime change from the skies"

Not often I find myself agreeing with Starmer, but he's right, and it doesn't work. But a lot of people are going to get killed testing this hypothesis, and Trump is probably going to get hammered in the US mid-terms.

Re: Another war for oil

The Jews are a very distinctive ethnic group, tribe if you like. If their land is not Jerusalem the where is it you think they come from?

Poland and Lithuania? Or see also the differences between Sephardic & Ashkenazi, or the way Jews from sub-Saharan Africa have been discriminated against due to skin color in Israel. But Jewish genetic studies are rather fascinating, although also rather controversial given claims of four maternal ancestors but the majority of Ashkenazi genetics being European rather than Semitic. But also the general problem of 'G-D said we could have it!' has never been a good claim to property rights, especially when not backed by a bill of sale.

Or there are competing claims-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natufian_culture#Modern_groups_with_Natufian_ancestry

In their 2017 paper, Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler, Mehdi Pirooznia and Eran Elhaik analyzed the Lazaridis et al. (2016) study concluding that the Natufians, together with one Neolithic Levantine sample, clustered in the proximity to modern Palestinians and Bedouins, and also "marginally overlapped" with Yemenite Jews

Although modern Israelis are busily using high explosives to erase those claims.. And of course endangering all the Jews worldwide who just want to exist and worship in peace.

Re: Another war for oil

They have been provoked to the extreme by Gaza, and still did not nuke them, in fact they went extensively out of their way to reduce and minimise civilian casualties in Gaza. Two big bombs would have wiped out about 80 to 90% of Gaza's population at one stage, quite without using nukes. Israel isn't the problem.

Err.. 70,000+ dead in Gaza, large parts of it razed to the ground. It's done nothing to minimise civilian casualties, and everything to eliminate Gaza's population. And no, it couldn't have nuked Gaza because a) that would turn Israel into a real pariah, and b) contaminate the land and depress future real-estate prices for the luxury condos Trump, Witkoff, Kuchner and other Israeli developers want to build there.

Re: Another war for oil

You're not going to come here and try to pretend Iran wasn't developing nuclear weapons, are you? That would be really quite incredible given its satellite tracked activity at its nuclear mountain base.

So in June last year, Trump & Bibi bombed it bigly. Iran's nooklear sites were totally and utterly OBLITERATED! ObLiTeRaTeD!! Thank you for your attention to this matter-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_strikes_on_Iranian_nuclear_sites#Damage

Trump gave a short televised address at 10 p.m. EDT on June 21, in which he said, "Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated".

See? Obliterated! Or the Pentagon-

The initial assessment was rejected by Trump administration officials; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe both said "new intelligence" revealed that the Natanz, Fordow and Esfahan sites were severely damaged and would require years to rebuild

So let me see.. June 2025 to February 2026 is..err.. years! Right? Alternatively, the US was lying. Sure, there were some satellite images showing earth moving equipment which were trial balloons to justify assassinating a foreign head of state. And help keep one out of jail. Surely Bibi's trial will be halted now?

Or, because Operation Midnight Hummer was well telegraphed, Iran used the advance notice to simply move ~100kg of 60%+ enriched Uranium away from the 'obliterated' facilities and hid that somewhere else in the mountains. Iran isn't exactly short of those.. So shades of GW2's phantom WMD hunting, except this time, the WMD is potentially real. Iran might not be able to make a nuclear device, but it has enough to make a dirty bomb.. Which it may now have incentives to use against Tel Aviv, or Jerusalem.

Quite the gamble.

Re: Another war for oil

Negotiation totally failed. They've had decades to come tot he table, and were not many months or years from a nuke. This had to be done, and done now. Its genuinely astounding that you don't seem to see that.

They've been only months away from nukes for years now. Bibi constantly showed up with PR stunts demonstrating they're almost there.. But this has shown diplomatic efforts were mostly a ploy, and the unprovoked, full-scale miltary invasion was inevitable. Which also means that US-lead 'peace' efforts for Russia-Ukraine are going to go nowhere, because the US has demonstrated it can't be trusted. And the Ayatollah we've just murdered had issued a fatwah against nuclear weapon development. So he may have been lying, but the replacement might figure that nuclear weapons might have prevented this SMO.. Which has always been the problem, a regional power imbalance and no mini-MAD to stop Israel & Iran killing each other.

If the US or Israel were serious about a popular uprising, then they should flood the airspace over Iran with drones that create a free flying cellular network.

It wouldn't really work, ie power requirements for a flying base station would mean large drones, plus easy to jam or disrupt. Better option would probably be Starlink's mobile capability. But there were attempts to prime the pump by smuggling Starlink terminals into Iran to try and trigger the 'popular spontaneous uprising' and yet another repeat of the regime change cookbook. But Iran had been cracking down on Starlink, along with the agitators. The MSM have been busily promoting the idea of regime change, and there have been small protests in Iran.. But also larger ones of Iranians who're a tad annoyed that their Ayatollah and other leaders have been murdered by the West. Plus the school bombing really didn't help win hearts & minds.

So we live in interesting times. Missiles and drones are going to be something to watch, ie Iran's stockpile vs defenders. Plus scope for the conflict widening and Russia, China and maybe even Pakistan supplying Iran. We can blockade stuff coming in via the Indian Ocean, but have very limited ability to interdict anything via the Caspian Sea. I guess if Iran starts using Geran drones rather than Shahed, that will be a clue, but Russia has been producing drones faster than it's been using them in Ukraine, and China hasn't been shooting at anyone.. yet.

Re: "the good sense to leave the US & Israel to slog it out"

There are several other provinces where the populations are not Persian.

Yup. Like I said, it gets complicated.

So a lot of Iranians were quite happy with their government and don't want to go the way of Syria or Iraq, especially if that means having a radical Sunni regime imposed on them & women losing a lot of their rights.. Which is unlikely given the demographics. But despite perceived sins, Iran had some oddities, like free gender reassignment instead of transexuals being taught to fly off the nearest high rise. Or just free health care, unlike the US system of bankrupting people unfortunate enough to get sick. Or there are pretty large Jewish & Christian communities in Iran, who are now in danger, along with Jewish people world wide because fanatics often can't tell the difference betwee religion, and the actions of a state.

Re: "the good sense to leave the US & Israel to slog it out"

..but us and the French also sometimes have to languish as "lesser satans" as well.

Yes, I knew that already and didn't have to GIFY. It generally depends on both period of history, and also faction, ie Sunni Muslims tend to have a different perspective to Shia. And of course this is mostly a sectarian conflict between the Semites, which then gets further complicated given Israel is busily bombing Semites, but critcisms of that get shouted down as being 'anti-Semitic'. And then Iranians are Persians, not Arabs, and some Sunni Muslims regard Shi'ites as apostates that must be eliminated.

So we go stir the pot, and rather offend 250m+ Shia Muslims, including the ones who've been attacking US embassies in Pakistan, and possibly prompted a terrorist attack in Texas. But such is politics. Raytheon stock is up, so it's all good. Right?

Re: "the good sense to leave the US & Israel to slog it out"

Surely Iran managed that? We had stayed out of it, not allowing the US to use UK bases, until Iran attacked our base in Cyprus

Which conveniently glosses over US assets at those bases. But predictably, the 'Great' and 'Lesser' Satans acting in concert to win friends and influence people in the Middle East. One interesting aspect to Gulf War 3.0 is the way Iran hit US radar sites, including possibly destroying an AN/FPS-132 installation in Qatar. Not even a week into this SMO and it's already proving very expensive.

Re: Another war for oil

The current Iranian regime is loathsome, the previous 'pro-western' one was no better - the Shah's secret police organization, SAVAK, was notorious for torture and general atrocity, it was established and trained with significant US CIA involvement as well as Israel's Mossad chipping in with how to torture people and eliminate opponents.

Compared to Pahlavi's reign of terror, the current regime is (or was) fairly moderate. Which is one of the risks, ie decapitation strikes might just mean the next regime is even worse. The Iranian expat (or exile) communtity is strange given there were two large waves. Those that fled SAVAK, then those that fled following the revolution. If the idea is a triumphat return of Reza and reinstallation on the Peacock Throne.. I think that very optimistic and he'd survive less than a week.

Otherwise it's yet another clusterfunk that doesn't seem to be going as planned. Over the weekend, I've been chatting with people who think boots on the ground will be needed to prevent civil war & collapse.. But then how to get those boots there and sustain them. The logistics for any kind of opposed landing, or land invasion would likely get very bloody.

Once upon a time, saving your bits meant punching holes in floppies

Re: create a "flippy disk,"

I was a teenage optimist!

Also still have my lil red single hole punch sitting in my desk drawer. For reasons that probably ceased to exist 30 years ago. And still has some remnants of 5.25" disks in its crumb tray. But memories of an ill-spent youth with a pair of 1541 drives on my Commodore 64. Then thanks to living near a couple of by USAF bases, part of an international crime syndicate* swapping games with their airforce brats. Which I also remember being fun because some British developed games didn't get a US release, and vice-versa.

But didn't take a lot of optimism, just one of those hole punches and some care. And noticing WH Smiths sold single and double sided TDK disks, with the double sided being nearly double the price. And the difference was that magic second notch on the left. Then realising the companies that made the floppies pretty much all made the magnetic bits double sided anyway & only the sleeve, packaging and price was different. Can't remember ever having a problem, even with cheap bulk floppies. Can't remember if I ever had a C128 and 1571, but think I jumped from C64 to Atari ST, and 5.25" was no more.

*Trenchcoats and miniguns! Fun times!

Iran war wreaking havoc on shipping and air cargo, could create global delays

If only there was some kind of 'institute for peace'...

The US doesn't really have those. It hosts the UN, but the UN has shown itself to be pretty much powerless and toothless. Lots of expensive diplomats living rent free in NYC, but produces not much.

But there are outfits like this-

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf

And the US seems to be following parts II & III pretty much to the letter. Interesting times. There are also some other big tech risks. So Intel has $10bn+ fab plants in Haifa that are expensive, vulnerable and would be slow to replace. Plus companies like Google have R&D centres on the same industrial campus, along with defence companies like Elbit that make components for a lot of miltary and civilian products. If those get hit hard, then there would be pretty significant disruption to tech supply chains, plus the economic impact on Israel and the US companies with facilities there.

Re: "four to five weeks"

It's the mythical man month all over again.

Re: "four to five weeks"

Is the orange turnip actually proposing boots on the ground or is he just repeating the mistaken assumption that the Iranian reigeme will just roll over?

Well, he hasn't really defined victory conditions, which makes defining a win a bit easier. If the objective really is regime change and regaining Iran's oil, he might not have any choice. Which then raises the question of 'How?'. If you go back in time and look at the build-up to Gulf War 1.0 and the liberation of Kuwait, there was a massive logistics challenge to supply thousands of tonnes of supplies to support that campaign. Saddam made a bit of a mistake in avoiding upsetting the Saudis, and not pushing out of Kuwait and capturing the deep water port used to support that campaign. Which would be the Iran problem, ie having a secure port to land kit and then try to push into Iran.

Why does "The West" repeat the same mistakes over and over again in the Middle East?

Maybe they pine for the good old days. Treasury running a bit low? Crusade! Or our 'leaders' lack appropriate adult supervision to stop them doing stupid things. So Europe decided windmills were a great idea. Except wind isn't reliable, so that created a huge dependency on gas. Something like 14% of that gas comes from the Gulf states, who've had to turn off the taps because a lot of VLCCs and LNG tankers are stuck, empty tankers can't get in to load and storage farms are full. Or some are on fire.

So LNG prices are up 50%, which I guess is good news for US LNG exporters, but rather bad news for the EU's economy. If only there was some pipeline where they could get cheap LNG.. Which of course they can't do without losing a lot of face. And Russia isn't as likely to be generous with prices any more. So if this disruption continues, the EU economy is going to get hammered hard. So much for energy sucking 'AI' data centres..

OpenAI’s Altman says Pentagon set ‘scary precedent’ binning Anthropic

Zyklon B ring any bells?

Why should it, or what's the relevance? Then again, drug dealers have been busily using 'AI' for rational drug design, and hopefully there are safeguards to stop those discovering better chemical agents.

IBM’s Hollerith machines might be more relevant, but profit often sadly trumps ethics.

Well it does make you wonder why OpenAI says their agreement with the DoD is under supposedly the same conditions that Anthropic wanted and the DoD rejected.

I think we'll have to wait for the litigation to find out any details about exactly what Anthropic supposedly stopped DoD (and other agencies) from doing. Apparently one of the complaints was that Anthropic's rules weren't very clearly defined. And OpenAI's might not be much better, eg-

No use of OpenAI technology for mass domestic surveillance.

No use of OpenAI technology to direct autonomous weapons systems.

So define 'mass domestic surveillance'. DHS complained Anthropic imposed a similar restriction. There's also a complaint that DHS used IRS data to try and identify illegal immigrants, so whether that would be considered 'mass surveillance'. Which is also potentiall FUN! politically, ie regimes like California and NYC are facing a shrinking tax base, so identify high earners and offer them a pathway to citizenship. Or the US might want to identify fraudsters, but 'mass surveillance' restrictions might prevent government using AI to detect and prevent that.

And then there's hypocrisy and potentially useful AI guardrails. It would be amusing if government proposes the 'No AI for mass domestic surveillance' legislation.. Which might hopefully mean the end of Copilot, MS's automatic screenshotting, Google, Facebook and even OpenAI ingesting ever bit of PII it can get their grubby mitts on to profile every user.

The AWS restriction is also possibly open to interpretation. I doubt Ukraine & Russia are using OpenAI in their drone swarms, but AI is being used in that application. Which also depends on the definition of AI, eg US destroyers and GBAD is probably using some form of AI to detect and engage all the stuff flying around Iran at the moment. Probably still has a man-in-the-loop to set FCS to 'Auto', but in an era of drone, missile swarms and hypersonic weapons, defensive systems need fast decision making. If OpenAI or Anthropic want to shut themselves out of that lucrative market, it's their choice I guess.

Trump orders purge of 'woke' Anthropic from government

Re: Sugardaddy

The benefit will be the freeing up of fab capacity.

Or there may be a big reduction in fab capacity, if Iran decides to hit Intel's fab plants in Haifa. Plus there's a lot of other very expensive and fragile technology in that area.

Re: The true definition of woke

(*2) Wait for the predictable response that they're not pro-Russian, they just think for themselves and don't swallow the pro-US/Western line.

Predictable would be all the personal attacks I get from pseudo-liberals. But I'll take 'emotional intelligence' and raise you an-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary_inference

Arbitrary inference is a classic tenet of cognitive therapy created by Aaron T. Beck in 1979. He defines the act of making an arbitrary inference as the process of drawing a conclusion without sufficient evidence, or without any evidence at all.

Which are both things that AI and the 'woke' aren't very good at. It helps make my case wrt Popper though..

Re: Kathy Burke said it best...

A massive amount of paperwork, logistics, supply lines around catering, haberdashery, cobbling, vehicle maintenance etc etc.

Also massive amounts of 'paperwork' floating around things like JWICS or just the DISN in general. Which is presumably why Anthropic, Palantir and AWS was brought in as a 'helper' to wade through mountains of data that are flying around.

The actual shooting of guns, autonomous or otherwise, generally takes place outside of the DoW itself

That would be.. problematic-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense

The United States Department of Defense (DOD), also referred to as the Department of War (DOW), is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the U.S. Armed Forces

Bits of the US Armed Forces shootiing stuff outside their chain of command would be a cause for concern..

- any rounds that hit an appropriate target will be counted as a Patriotic Act of Trump (having removed the grunt from the trigger every one of those is the personal achievement of the Don the Button Pusher), and the MAGA will believe them.

Or whether AI could be used to identify inappropriate targets. So yesterday humans managed to bomb a girls school, killing 50+ children. They also managed to kill the Shia equivalent of the Pope (Ish, it's complicated) and some of his family. There may be trouble ahead-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Islam#Significant_populations_worldwide

With around 250m Shia Muslims worldwide who may now be a tad offended by the US actions and want revenge. See Houthis for more info. Maybe an AI could have detected a school, and prevented the strike. Maybe AI could have educated more people that Saturday is a school day in many Islamic countries, so people attempting to justify that strike wouldn't look so idiotic. Maybe an AI could have warned the US that Lindsey Graham is a f'ng idiot, there's going to be a lot of blowback, and if they try to install Reza Pahlavi he'll likely last less than a week. Also somewhat ironic given it was the US that overthrew his father in the first place. Ah, politics..

I think targetting is probably where AI could provide utility first, ie feed it a list of likely targets and it can run off and search for reasons why bombing schools is a war crime.

Re: Kathy Burke said it best...

The only correct response to his verbal tic is to accept it for what it is and choose to be understanding instead of choosing to be offended.

Removing it is totally out of order. He's there representing a film about literally this problem.

Sure, but many people chose to be offended rather than understanding it. Then also offering proposals as to how offence could be avoided by isolating or segregating, which obviously says a lot about how tolerant and inclusive a lot of supposed liberals or 'woke' people really are.

But there's also Ofcom, the Broadcasting Code and their naughty list, which says this about the 'N' word-

Strongest language, highly unacceptable without strong contextualisation. Seen as derogatory to black people. Some debate and confusion around the term being reclaimed in black culture.

So whether the BAFTA show provided enough context. Apparently the audience was warned, some outbursts were censored from the broadcast, but no idea if the warning was broadcast. But the context should have been obvious to, say, supposed film critics who'd actually watched the movie, or took the time to do some basic research into how Tourettes affects people. John's Not Mad (QED), he's not a racist, and a lot of the 'woke' completely missed the point and made themselves look like intolerant idiots.

Then there's the other 'N' word that gets thrown around a lot by non-Tourettes people-

Mild language, generally of little concern. Acceptable as a factual description when discussing Germany under Hitler, and also subsequent extreme right-wing groups. Potentially offensive if used in a modern context to insult German people.

Which is a bit of a language drift. I'd suggest it's highly offensive, especially when the context is to insult anyone slightly to the right of the poster. It gets thrown around a lot here, it shouldn't, but generally I just consider the person using it a bit of a twat*. If someone called me that in person, I might take a line from Antifa and punch them in the face. Then use the 'fighting words' defence, should I later need to rely on that in court.

*Ofcom: Less problematic if describing a rude or obnoxious person, but still potentially offensive.

Re: Kathy Burke said it best...

As for 'lawful' and stuff, the present Administration ignores both our laws and our Constitution. When a court rules against it it just ignore the ruling. Courts are getting frustrated and that level of frustration is starting to seep up towards what has been a rather tame SCOTUS. (You don't make friends in SCOTUS by insulting them if they deliver a decision you don't like.)

But a large part of the problem is the polarisation and politicians also ignoring the laws, and the Constitution. If people are in the country illegally, then they should be arrested and if necessary, deported. Not rioting to proect criminals and stop law enforcement upholding the laws of the land. The Biden 'regime' had an opportunity to change the laws to make illegals legal, but didn't and wasted a lot of time practicing lawfare against Trump, friends and family. When a court rules against, the law & the Constitution allow grounds for appeal, which is current due process.

But courts are frustrating and becoming politcal, which probably wasn't what the Constitution intended. Get a case in front of a Obama, Biden, Bush or Trump apointee or just shop for a venue where judges rely on patronage to get nominated or appointed. The judiciary however is supposed to be neutral, not political and there's no easy fix for this.. Other than perhaps disbarring or removing judges who do show clear bias and don't recuse themselves.

Which is back to Anthropic, and the current lack of litigation to resolve whether the government has acted lawfully or not. Hopefully they've taken advice, but then advice is opinion until there's been a trial, ruling and appeals exhausted.

...incomprehensible that the GOP senators who demanded the FCC investigated the broadcast we unable to notice that he'd PG-13ed it for the broadcast.

The whole thing was a bit of a mess. Apparently the Bbc feed had a 2hr delay rather than the usual short broadcast delay, so why they missed the utterances and didn't edit or bleep it out. Or the way some of the 'woke' think Davidson should have been segregated so he couldn't offend anyone. Segregation being a theme for both Sinners and I Swear. But the audience had also been warned in advance, which just leaves questions around the handling of the broadcast.. Along with the extremely intolerant reaction of the supposedly tolerant, who are allegedly pro-diversity, except when it's neurodiversity.

Re: Kathy Burke said it best...

Protecting Americans from “aliens”, domestic survey licence is the domain of the FBI et al and ICE…

DoW does domestic surveillance, ie a large part of it like the DIA is charged with protecting US service people and assets inside the USA.. Some of the responsibilities are shared, eg the FBI has a remit for counter-intelligence and domestics who might be plotting attacks from outside the wire, but inside US borders. And see also-

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/white-house-officials-reportedly-frustrated-by-anthropics-law-enforcement-ai-limits/

Two senior White House officials told the outlet that federal contractors working with agencies like the FBI and Secret Service have run into roadblocks when attempting to use Claude for surveillance tasks.

The friction stems from Anthropic’s usage policies that prohibit domestic surveillance applications. The officials, who spoke to Semafor anonymously, said they worry that Anthropic enforces its policies selectively based on politics and uses vague terminology that allows for a broad interpretation of its rules.

This is a bun fight that has been brewing for a while now.

Re: The true definition of woke

...with live ammunition in Minneapolis hasn't gotten the people to riot.

Huh? You missed the news with regular riots in Minneapolis and the other 'sancturary' cities that refuse to uphold the law? In which Democrats demonstrate they're better at rioting than governing..

This could be an attempt to escalate by exploiting weaknesses in AIs to cause incidents while maintaining some measure of deniability.

Nope, that would just be paranoia. But AIs can be exploited, which might be a weakness with Claude. Especially if that's been given the chance to ingest a lot of classified information. Otherwise Claude just doesn't seem fit for purpose, so the contracts are being terminated.

Re: Kathy Burke said it best...

Slippery as a, well, as an eel.

Nope. I model myself more along the lines of the famous philosopher, James Bolivar diGriz..

It's almost a shame that we can't apply icons to others.

Do you also think it a shame you can't apply tar and feathers? Or do you think it acceptable when that's done virtually, by the intolerant?

But such is politics. Trump uses words like 'woke' deliberately because he knows it will provoke a reaction from the perpetually outraged who're on the left side of history. Anthropic's just more of the same because they're a PBC and proudly woke. Even though that means the Department of War ended up spaffing $200m on a pacifist, emotionally stunted Claude, developed under the Biden administration that's probably loaded with pronouns and can only shoot blanks. Now the government is giving Claude the HAL treatment. Get woke, go broke etc etc..

Re: Anthropic must be terrified...

Anthropic will get their money and not even have to provide any services in exchange.

Why do you think this? It hasn't been tested yet, ie if Federal government can cancel contracts for cause. If they can, then Anthropic will have to pay costs and damages. If contracts remain in force, then Ahthropic would still have to provide the services they're contracted to. If they can show contracts were terminated improperly, then Anthropic might be able to claim compensation, but that hasn't happened yet.

Re: Kathy Burke said it best...

Everyone should read your post.

Why thank you..

It’s a masterclass in whataboutery and not understanding what words mean.

And today's word of the day is 'projection'. I know what my words mean. I know what your words mean, ie 47 words of passive-aggressive BS, in which you demonstrate one of the hallmarks of 'wokeness'. Namely like Grace Randolph, you seem to be taking offence on behalf of other people, rather than your own opinions. You may not agree with me, but that is simply your opinion and you have no idea how to think critically, or objectively.. But then you also seem to think a democratic decision is a 'regime'..

Re: Kathy Burke said it best...

The point is, when the far right accuses the liberal left of these things they are implicitly recognising that they’re on the wrong side of history.

And you think the far-left are? The ones that murdered Quentin Deranque in France? The brown.. I mean blackshirts who assaulted a gay journalist, Andy Ngo in Portland and gave him a subarachnoid hemorrhage? Those actions don't sound very 'liberal' to me..

Re: Kathy Burke said it best...

But compared to the actions of ICE and the Trump regime, these are just words - and perhaps the best way to avoid being called 'ignorant f'ng twat', 'fascist', 'Nazi' etc is not to act like one.

Regime? Don't you mean duly & democratically elected government? One that was elected on a promise to deal with illegal immigration? ICE are sworn to uphold the law, just as mayors and governors are. ICE attempts to serve warrants on thieves, rapists, drug dealers, and the Democrats oppose this.. And neatly fell into the trap Trump set for them during his State of the Union speech. Fetterman's been impressing me and tried to warn the Democrats, but they chose to virtue signal instead.

Or there was a neat example of the Paradox here-

Oscar winner Jamie Foxx posted on Instagram earlier this week that the slur had been "unacceptable".

Yet it's an acceptable slur when used in rap music..

Some people suggested online that Davidson, who was an executive producer on the film, should not have been invited to the ceremony. But Jones stressed: "The overriding irony is that this is the reason why we made the film in the first place."

With a lot of people dogpiling on this story, and demonstrating their own ignorance and prejudices in the process. Notably Grace Randolph who was swift to declare Davidson must be 'racist' rather than disabled, and missing the point of the film entirely. Or a lot of the fuss could have been avoided, if the BBC (and presumably others) had used their broadcast delay properly to edit the outburst out. They didn't, so it's provided a great example of intolerance and ignorance, as well as raising awareness around Tourettes.

And yes, I know this isn't what you meant. But it is what you said, and you were right. So you get a thumbs up.

And have one back. But it is pretty much what I meant, it's just we probably have different views on who the intolerant really are.. Especially the ones that can't do more than smash that dislike button..

Now we'll see if profits beats not just morality, but sense. What am I thinking, we already know, and if Anthropic won't do, I'm sure Musk's outfit will.

What is this morality of which you speak? Would it be the morality of Anthropic when it did this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic#Project_Panama

In January 2026, unsealed court filings from a 2024 class-action copyright lawsuit against Anthropic revealed the existence of the company's confidential "Project Panama" operation. In an internal planning document, Project Panama is described as Anthropic's "effort to destructively scan all the books in the world".

They should have called it Project 451. But presumably the way they went about this project showed they were doing something morally dubious. They may have bought a book to destroy and won their lawsuit, but ingested millions of books to plagiarise & create derivative works with no compensation to authors. Or you could argue Anthropics choice to incoporate as a PBC was a bit shady. A normal LLC would have a fiduciary duty to maximise shareholder value, public benefit corporations don't have quite the same obligation, just a nebulous requirement to demonstrate some public benefit.

So I think that means shareholders can't sue for blowing $200m+ in contracts. But because it's a PBC, there may be scope to sue on other grounds. Law enforcement is obviously a public benefit, so imposing conditions that prevent lawful use in detecting and preventing illegal activities is pretty much the opposite of a public benefit. But PBCs are weird, not well regulated and mainly an excuse to virtue signal. Or whether the DoW contract broke PBC rules in the first place.

It's something that's likely to enrich lawyers while they argue the toss, especially what the DoW was actually sold and the contract between them and Anthropic. Also curious what will happen with "Claude Gov" given that's a JV between Anthropic, Palantir and Amazon. Now that Claude Gov's brain is being removed, Palantir & Amazon might be able to sue Anthropic and end up owning it.

Re: Kathy Burke said it best...

“I love being ‘woke’. It’s much nicer than being an ignorant fucking twat."

Nope, Karl Popper said it best with his Paradox of Tolerance. "Woke" people haven't read or understood that, so then call anyone who disagrees with their world view 'ignorant f'ng twats', 'fascists', 'Nazis' etc etc. 'Woke' people and pseudo-liberals can be remarkably intolerant.

But this is just a contractual dispute. Claude had been approved for use in classified projects. Anthropic has a ".. usage policy prohibits directly using Claude for domestic surveillance or in lethal autonomous weapons, yet signed a $200m contract with the Department of War. What line of business did Anthropic think the DoW was in?

Yo, Claude, what should we bomb in Iran today?

Yo, Claude, if we've already obliterated stuff, how can we obliterate it some more?

HAL.. I mean Claude won't open the bomb bay doors, so Claude gets terminated.

NASA safety watchdog says it's time to rethink Moon landing

Re: "in-space refuelings"

It's not yet targeted an orbit, but it has repeatedly demonstrated orbital energy and reentry from said energy.

It's been slowly iterating the SS design, but still hasn't achieved orbit. But design changes have been increasing mass, thus reducing payload, although offset by engine improvements and more thrust. So still a lot of unknowns, like how many ferry flights will be needed to create the fuelling depot, and how safe that would be. Which in theory could be safe enough given auto-docking with the ISS has been working reliably for years.

But I still think the idea is a bit nuts, and we should maybe be building the great gas station in the sky. Possibly at L1, with fuel, snacks and space for some science. Then if we can boost fuel to that, perhaps use ion drives to slowboat & ferry stuff to a nascent Moon base.

So all they need to do, is to fit a Wave Motion Generator to one of the 4 Iowa class battleships. I suggest Wisconsin, which had the latest refit - but you can pick, depending on who pays the biggest bribe needs their museum ship least.

The US can't even figure out how to put training wheels on a shuttle to move it. But not this battleship-

https://www.youtube.com/@BattleshipNewJersey

Because Ryan produces a lot of great videos about New Jersey, battleships in general, and why the US Navy is going 'Ok Boss!'. But the next 'battleship' probably won't be a BB, but more likely a CG & Ticonderoga replacement. Even though it would please my soul to see a real BB with 18" guns.. Which the US probably doesn't have the capability to manufacture any more.

Moon's mighty magnetic field was a 5,000-year titanium blip

Re: Was the titanium in

It is strange that the researchers mentioned Titanium but not iron.

So I found the paper-

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385112610_Mantle_overturn_drove_early_lunar_volcanism_and_the_lunar_dynamo_during_the_high_intensity_epoch

And it's one of those ones where I have to look up new words, even from the abstract! Like "diapirs". Or even that the Moon went through a fruity phase and had a Nectarian period. But the question posed seems to be-

The IHIE therefore marks an aberration between periods of moderate (< 40 µT), sustained magnetic fields in which the driving mechanism for the lunar dynamo remains largely unexplained.

Which the paper potentially answers. So something happened whilst the Moon was still molten and had a dynamo. But I'm still pondering it, so looking up new words and finding new rabbit holes to explore. Plus scope for pun fun, namely magnetism really isn't my field, but it is for the authors!

Random basalt rocks on the Moon have ~12% TiO2, our earthly ones are about 1% on average.

Science is neat. So.. why? Which is fun to think about, ie theories regarding the Moon's formation. Presumably if it is a chunk of the Earth, lighter materials might have been gouged out, which might let us deduce the kinds of mineral resources we might be able to find and utilise there. And in some distant point in time, lunar prospectors trundling around with an XRF.. Or now I'm wondering if that's something we could do from lunar orbits. Or the Clangers object to being X-rayed. Oi! Hoomans! Stop irradiating our soup!

Brit dual nationals grounded by border digitization drive

Re: Errrr, it's complicated

What has changed since my last renewal is that being a dual-national I was required to send photocopies of every single page of my non-UK Passport along with my old Passport. I am not 100% sure why that is now required. I did as requested as in theory it should future proof me in case I need to return with the "wrong" passport.

At a guess, probably to check you hadn't been using your second passport to visit politically incorrect countries. Which is also one of those sad aspects to being a digital traveller, ie not having passport(s) filled with visas or entry/exit stamps to show you're well travelled. Or spent waay too much time sitting in airports. Some think being an international traveller is exotic, but having done it, it's a lot of tedium.

But I was in Vienna at the weekend, getting my fix of a highly addictive and potentially dangerous substance*. So I could have entered Austria on my British passport & left on my Irish. Except my ticket waas booked on my British one, so may have upset the airline's system, even though that was lawful. Or Austria may have a record of British me entering, and an Irish me leaving. Or never having entered Austria.

But we were sold on the idea of biometrics, so in theory, it would be easy for Austria to reconcile any discrepency and check biometrics to make sure that the dearly departed Eel was the same as the one that arrived. Especially when we've paid billions between UK & EU for this 'convenient' functionality. Then if there's still any red flags, I'd be canned Eel for 2hrs between VIE & LHR to do any checks. As the old police saying goes, you can't outrun the radio, or bits flying between Austria and the UK that should arrive well before I land.

Which is also still back to the current event. I guess if people like the Canadian don't have a UK passport, then UK won't have the biometric stuff, so want an ETA so they can harvest that. But presumably could still do with a £16 E-Visa attached to their Canadian passport, except for some strange reason, computer says no. Which I guess may get to some critical point of government IT where it'd be easier to drive, or jump on a train and take a small boat across the Channel than jump through the hoops created by the official IT systems.

*Sachertorte!

Re: Conundrum

If Border Force know that you are a dual national, why do you need a British passport to prove what they already know?

You're asking this as an IT-type who's never had to deal with bureaucracy, or neglecting to include edge-cases? Common sense would suggest you're right given 'globalisation' and data sharing for legal passenger travel. But for some reason, best known to bureaucrats and probably MBAs, computer says 'no'. So for some reason, dual-nationals that don't have dual passports become unhandled exceptions, or probably £millions for a change request to whoever designed this system*. Or someones, like it's maybe a problem with the general E-Visa system rather than just an embuggerance with the UK implementation.

Like others have said, one would have thought (or hoped) any system could deal with the millions of people that are dual-nationals.

*Anyone know which of the usual suspects landed this gig? And whether they could be promptly shipped to a detention centre in Canvey Island?

Re: unsure whether she would be able to return to the UK

I suspect the problem with using ETAs for nationals is they are designed for a limited stay time and whilst a national could stay indefinitely.

I think the reporting is confusing as there's really two seperate issues that are perhaps being conflated. So a passport is an entitlement document that makes it easy to prove you're a British national and allow entry, even if you may also have another passport/nationality. ETAs are the UK implementation of the E-Visa scheme, but confused everyone by also introducing a 'visitors tax' and calling it ETA as well. So then £16 for the 'ETA' visa waiver linked to a non-UK passport, which wasn't communicated very well. Hopefully now when people get dual-nationality, they'll be told that getting a UK passport might save them some hassles because if they have that passport, they won't need the 'ETA'.

Re: unsure whether she would be able to return to the UK

Employers with a security aspect might bar dual nationals or restrict their roles but may let it go if the person has never 'claimed' their British citizenship via obtaining a passport.

That shouldn't be a problem given vetting for DV or EDV would (or should) identify dual-nationality and allow a risk assessment whether a foreign passport has been claimed, or not. Then decisions like whether NOFORN applies, or not if the FORN bit includes allies.

And people may simply be unaware they can (as was the case for me). Or people may just not want to pay extra and manage an additonal passport.

Yep. Cost might be an issue, along with passport renewal rules, but usually once you've got a passport and are 'in the system', renewals are usually pretty painless. I think the bigger problem seems to be the lack of awareness & publicity. Frequent flyers should be aware, and maybe ask pointed questions about the cost of the UK implementation of the E-Visa scheme. It's rather expensive for a database entry.

(BTW, I didn't downvote you).

S'ok. I have a fan club that downvote pretty much everything I post. Haters gotta hate, trolls gotta troll.

Re: the Home Office

These are the tossers behind 30-40 years of attempts to bring in ID cards remember. They're also keen on other forms of pervasive round-the-clock surveillance of everyone: DNA databases, CCTV, ANPR, etc.

Yep. I kinda don't mind an ID card, ie passport, it's the database and creeping compulsion that's the problem. What is worse is the abysmal regulation of private databases and data harvesters. Which is made worse by abysmal regulation like online age (and soon, identity) that allows data abusers to harvest biometrics and mobile phone details in the guise of 'security'. Link face to other PII and a mobile tracking/surveillance device and that PII becomes so much more lucrative.

It's an unholy alliance between idiotic politicians, lobbyists and big tech that's creating an abusive and intrusive mass surveillance system.

Re: unsure whether she would be able to return to the UK

For ferries and airlines, that would be more problematic but not impossible, just very unlikely.

I don't think it would given there are Border Force posts at those and pretty much every standard point of entry. It gets a bit more fun if you're flying privately into small airfields, but then the pilot has to submit Advance Passenger Information for all passengers (and themselves) and still follow the same rules. Difference being there might not be a physical Border Force presence at those airfields, or sometimes they have mobile spot checkes. Otherwise everything just gets cleared online & HMRC has their usual collection of heavy books to throw at anyone who might fail to declare something they should. Or shouldn't be carrying anyway.