Posts by Jellied Eel

US, NATO military plans leak: Actual war strategy or pro-Kremlin shenanigans?

Re: Neither one nor the other.

The mere fact that the mainstream press is slobbering...

All perfectly normal. The usual suspects are acting as the usual suspects do, ie acting from the same hymn sheet. 51 current or former intelligence officers say this has all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. Maybe it's real, maybe it's not, maybe it's something NATO's leaked to feed misinformation to Russia. It's a game everyone's playing and both sides try to manipulate and control shape the narrative.

But from what I've seen, there are several versions of the documents floating around, usually photos of printed materials. Some do appear to have edited casualty estimates to favor one side, or the other. This is an interesting project-

https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng

Mediazona, working with BBC News Russian service and a team of volunteers, continues to collect data about the casualties sustained by the Russian military in Ukraine. These numbers do not represent the actual death toll since we can only review publicly available reports including social media posts by relatives, reports in local media, and statements by the local authorities.

So a semi-open source project to try and provide estimates. Neither of the two partners are exactly neutral, or impartial wrt to the Russian government (or 'regime'), but the methodology appears sound. But the numbers diverge widely from 'official' casualty estimates given out by the US, UK, Ukraine, NATO or even the Institute for the Promotion of War. Casuality estimation is an inexact science though, because reports use different metrics, ie counting deaths, or counting deaths plus wounded, then differentiating between wounded that can rejoin vs those that can't.

There's also some common sense. If Russia's suffered 200k+ and Ukraine <50k, then.. how? Most of the conflict so far has been artillery driven, and Russia's outgunning Ukraine by 6-8x, and has significant numerical advantages in number of artillery pieces and volume of fire. It could be that Ukraine's artillery is much more precise and effective, or it could be the usual fog of war.

Hopefully both sides will come to their senses soon and there'll be serious attempts at peace negotiations. If not, actual casualty numbers are just going to keep climbing.

(oh, and I do not have any copies, won't link to any I've seen, or comment on any of the specifics. If they are classified docs, they're classified docs)

Drones aim to undo Ukraine's landmine problem

WW1 ended more than one century ago. Around Verdun, 900 tons of ammunition are dug out every year. The time estimated for the disappearance of all WW1 ammunitions buried in France is 700 years. Add to this the soil pollution because of the chemicals used in ammunitions, like perchlorates.

Yep. Regardless of of politics, it's a collosal problem. Also why I think mines should just be banned across the board. They're dumb, and blissfully unaware of the state of the conflict. So they don't care if they're being driven over by a tank or a troop transport, or a tractor or a school bus. Plus WW1 had other nasties, like dirty old glass bottles that start giving off a brownish vapor when they're broken.

But from wiki-

Mine flails have the advantage of being able to clear most mines from an area comparatively rapidly - the manufacturer of the British Aardvark Mark 4 quotes a maximum rate of 3,000 square metres (0.74 acres) per hour, however 600 square metres (0.15 acres) per hour is more usual.

and watching some Robot Wars.. Israel's developed a lot of sophisticated autonomous vehicles for agriculture, so there's probably scope for doing something along those lines. And I'm sure companies are, but AVs that can automagically thoroughly cover an area. But there's a lot of area given a 1,000km+ front that might be 20km+ deep, and includes a lot of wooded areas. Like much of the border between Ukraine and Belarus. For chemical contamination, there have been some neat experiments form around Chernobyl using fast growing grasses that can suck up contaminants. Downside is the grass would still need to be processed, and they'd suck up useful nutrients as well. That rich agricultural land could become safe and productive again in a few decades.

So still better to just ban them completely, even though nations would probably still carry on using them. Or develop fully biodegradeable mines approved by the Soil Association.

Re: War reparations

1) that vote was fully on the up and up

Election monitors thought so. Think of it like Scotland and their demands for yet another referendum. And even their invocation of the UN's right to self-determination.

2) those who were against it had no fear of retribution should they vote that way</blockqoute>

Most probably didn't, or feared the opposite given the incoming regime were very quick to start de-russification. Many reported at the time they were more afraid of Kiev than Moscow. Partly I suspect given Crimea had long been Russian, long enjoyed local autonomy and most identified as ethnic or culturally Russian. Plus there were incidents like the alledged sef-immolation of the anti-coup Ukrainiands in Odessa.

3) the outcome was not affected by all the Ukrainians who fled their homes when Russia swooped in and thus didn't vote, and all the Russians who were brought in to live there and allowed to vote

Not very many did, and I'm sure you have sound evidence of attempted vote rigging by bringing in hordes of immigrants to try and shift the demographics. Again this is why I said it was mostly fair given the number of observers that said the same thing, and the speed it happened. Millions did flee Donbas after Ukraine mined and shelled the Ukrainians living there, which is why I'd very much doubt anyone could argue a fair referendum there. But again, look at historical voting patterns for Ukraine, and you can see the very clear split between East and West.

<blockqoute>If a gang breaks down your door carrying AR15s, and asks you and your family to vote on whether the gang members can live there from now..

You have some very strange fantasies, but I suspect I know where they come from. Not sure why you mentioned AR15s other than some parts of the world live in terror of 'assault weapons', not the people that may own semi-automatic rifles. Or perhaps you live in terror because that's what you've been educated to do by politicians who'll ruthlessly exploit tragedies for their own political purposes. Which is somewhat ironic givein one of the first things Ukraine did is to hand out 'AR15s' to anybody that wanted one, and then demand more. It's almost as though a well-regulated militia can be a good thing.

I also curious why you came up with the idea that journalists and people who don't support the regime should be rounded up and worked to their deaths, simply for voicing opinions you disagree with. That happened in Germany not so long ago, and you can even read about it in the history books..

Re: War reparations

Mr. Eel there has several times told how Russia's actions are quite lawful, welcomed by the Ukrainians and it's only the glue sniffing nazis in Kiev that do bad things.

That's the kind of gross distortion and misrepresentation I've come to expect from the far left.

1) Russia's actions are quite lawful. Ish. I've also said repeatedly that the justifications used to attack, invade and occupy small defenceless countries need to be clarified. I don't necessarily agree that they are lawful, but immediately prior to the invasion, Russia invoked pretty much exactly the same justifcation as we used to invade and occupy sovereign nations like Syria. Arguably Russia has more justification given the historical, ethnic and cultural connections between people living in Ukraine than we have with Syria.

So basically if it's legal for us to invade and occupy and steal resources from Syria, why shouldn't Russia do the same thing? Especially as our actions have lead to Syria being in the news again. Saudis are normalising diplomatic relations with Syria and Iran, relations between Sunni and Shia are improving, which will hopefully lead to less sectarian conflict. And of course de-dollarisation is acccelerating, which isn't good news for the West.

2) Some Ukrainains have welcomed Russia. Most obvious being Crimea, which voted to become part of Russia (again) after Crimean autonomy had been withdrawn by the incoming 2014 regime. There were numerous election monitors there, and it ran in accordance with UN principles of the right to self-determination. Obviously Kiev wasn't happy about this because it foiled the cunning (and obvious) plan to kick Russia's Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea and turn it into a NATO base. Much the same happened with Donbass, although a referendum would arguably be a lot less legal given much of it's population fled. But if you look at Ukraine's election results and demographics, it's pretty much split between West and East along cultural, ethnic and historical lines.

3) I'm pretty sure I've never claimed Western/Galacian Ukrainians are glue sniffers. There is however plenty of evidence for WW2 vintage far-right (or left) nationalist extremism. Azov's wolfsangel still appears regularly, as do other WW2 vintage German icons. Then there's the rehabilitation of Badneras, and the glorification of the OUN. When people mindlessly chant 'slava Ukraine', they really should perhaps look at where that chant originated. See also-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakhmut#20th_century

In early 1942, German Einsatzgruppe C took some 3,000 Jews from Artemivsk to a mine shaft two kilometres outside of town and shot into the crowd, killing several people and driving the rest into a tunnel. The soldiers then bricked up the entrance to the tunnel, suffocating the thousands of people trapped inside.

An awful lot of blood has been spilled in Ukraine thanks to politics. I've been trying to find out if that memorial has survived, but given the current state of Bakhmut, it's doubtful.

4) I've never said it's only Kiev doing bad things. Both sides have been, but most of our reporting has been incredibly one-sided and unbalanced. But that's propaganda for you. Again it's like I said in my first post. Ukraine has and will have a collosal de-mining problem to deal with, thanks to heavy usage by both sides.

Oh, and respect for El Reg for changing the title to make this problem clearer.

Re: War reparations

...fatally punishing Party A for the evil actions of Party B just because Party A is guilty of different evil actions is not justice, it's just a vindictive retaliation that will only encourage Party A to continue to seek vengeance against Party B.

Sadly, many supposed 'liberals' do not understand this principle, or distinction. This is probably why we've had so many conflicts since the establishment of the UN, and so many millions dead, wounded or displaced. Historians or military types tend to, hence why there were laws of war that discouraged some retaliatory or escalatory actions that just make conflicts worse, both for combatants and non-combatants.

I do however think a UN-administered 'Battle Royale' could be a good idea. Set aside a chunk of land, and invite our political elite to settle their differences on a battlefield. If they faced the consequences of their decisions or actions personally, they may be reluctant to start so many conflicts. Usually they're much happier letting other people die or be maimed for their beliefs. It'd also likely be self-financing with PPV, ad supported streaming etc. Will BoJo make it through this minefield? Place your bets on how far Bolton's moustache flies.. stay tuned after these messages from our sponsors..

Re: great respect for Ukraine here

..perhaps looking at subtle changes in the appearance of vegetation when viewed in certain spectrum, which might reveal which patches of grass are stressed because their roots are restricted by the presence of a mine just beneath, affecting soil moisture.

Yep. Or spectrometry and chemical detection of the mine's materials or explosives. I've seen a few interesting ideas including training bees to detect chemicals, but there seems to be a huge risk for false positives. So there'll be UXO risks as you say from undetonated munitions that will need to be cleared, or detonated ones would still leave chemical residues. I guess there'd be similar risks with observing plants, ie do nitrogen residues promote or decrease plant growth? Or, could you genetically modify some variety of fast-growing grass that reacts to explosives? Bonus points I guess if you could make that reaction flouresce.

There's also some very neat laser scanning and digital terrain mapping tools that can highlight disturbed ground.. But again there's a problem given there's an awful lot of that along and around the contact lines. I think it would be better if mines were just completely banned, along with some other classes of weapons. We're still finding UXO from WW1 and WW2 that's still killing people, and now we've just added to that mess.

Re: great respect for Ukraine here

I agree with your point(s) about the use of anti-personnel mines, but felt you weakened your argument by muddying the waters with evidence of non-anti-personnel (technically) mine laying.

True I guess. Personally I think any type of mine is bad news, and support the Ottawa Convention. There may still be issues with the types of anti-vehicle mines being used (by both sides) given their age. Some modern mines have fuzes that in theory should render them inert after a while, reducing their risk slightly. But it's going to be a huge de-mining task to clear Ukraine. Mines may not be accurately mapped, and have a nasty habit of moving due to soil effects like frost heave. Or just looking at Ukraine's hellscape, buried or moved by all the artillery craters, especially as many mines have fuzes that don't detonate due to shockwaves, and thus stay armed and deadly for a lot longer.

Curious how well these drones will work given the difficulty of doing stuff like GPR or MAD against devices that are designed to be hard to detect by old techniques like metal detection.. Plus there's going to be huge quantities of scrap metal around the battlefields anyway.

Re: great respect for Ukraine here

You are conflating a couple of things there. The Ottawa (and subsequent rounds of the) Convention do not include anti-tank mines, e.g.,:

No, I am not. The Ottawa Convention is pretty clear about signatory's responsibilities. I mentioned the use of PFM-1 mines, which are covered by the Convention, but are in use in Ukraine. They're especially nasty because they're typically deployed by artillery rockets and indiscriminate pretty much by definition. Ukraine is a signatory, it's admitted possessing them, it hasn't destroyed them, and there is strong evidence that it has been using them.

Anti-tank mines are going to be a much longer term challenge. Both sides have been using them, both sides will need to dispose of them before they can use the roads or agricultural land they've been scattered over. They're also a challenge for the 'Spring Offensives' planned by both sides given they'll have to find routes through heavily mined fronts. Ukraine's been sent a small number of mine clearing vehicles like Stryker engineering versions, but there's a lot of front to cover. So track the Strykers, find the offensive. Plus one of the main applications for landmines is to funnel forces into kill zones. So they may be able to clear a path a few meters wide, but then have to route forces through those paths all the while being under artillery fire.

Re: great respect for Ukraine here

As far as I'm concerned those who set mines are a very special kind of sub-human. Yes I know the UK has done this too.

War is hell like that. But mines are still very popular for area denial.

Once again, this is not supporting one side or the other, just an attempt to provide balance.. But-

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/31/ukraine-banned-landmines-harm-civilians

Ukraine has also been using landmines extensively since 2014 along the Donbass contact lines, and has fired PFM-1 'Butterfly' mines into towns like Izium and Donetsk. There have also been photos and videos of scattered bodies after Russian forces walked into Ukrainian minefields, or Ukrainian volunteers mining roads with anti-tank mines. One of those videos showed a US international volunteer setting that mine. Neither Russia, nor the US are signatories to the Ottawa Convention, but Ukraine is and thus should have destroyed it's stocks of landmines.

This is a short video showing part of Ukraine's mine disposal efforts-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZunfqiOme4

Cisco Moscow trashed offices as it quit Putin's putrid pariah state

Re: Only good business

The government came up with the rules, so while wasteful, it was more profitable to shred the stuff. Shrinkage, damage, waste and obsolete product is an accounting category.

Not at Amazon I guess. Returns and refurbs go right back out again. But ISTR there were also businesses like Richer Sounds and overstockers who would take a lot of that kit and sell it. I pciked up some very nice speakers once that were ex-demo and deeply discounted.

Re: Only good business

Locals on the local pay-roll and paid from the local bank account don't violate sanctions.

I wondered if that was the trick. Presumably that only works for as long as there's money in that account. Then it'd be the challenge of fnding a sanction-avoiding way to trasnsfer money. Guessing that could happen fairly quickly if Cisco's Moscow office has taxes due, breaks leases, employment contracts etc etc.

Re: Only good business

Once that happened, none of the trashed stuff could be allowed to fall into Russian hands, any more than the parts would be allowed to be traded. Letting it happen could result in charges for the people involved.

Embargo means not allowing imports into Russia. If it's already there, it's not breaking embargos or import/export bans. Unless I guess it's sitting in some kind of bonded warehouse or freeport. But Cisco wouldn't be allowed to sell any more tin post-sanction. It doesn't really matter if it falls into Russia's hands, other than in a 'Yey, free stuff' fashion because Cisco's been flogging pretty much it's entire product line inside Russia for well over a decade. Anyone who's built global networks knows full well the joys of buying tin (ok, renting software licences) from 'global' providers and then trying to add it into Cisco's licence manglement system.

Really they should likely have been incinerated to prevent reverse engineering, but maybe that was too much work.

Cisco doesn't burn anything other than cash or goodwill. Anything any nation wanted to reverse engineer will have been reverse engineered already. The stuff is everywhere, including cloned and counterfeited versions. You can even buy it in places like Iran, and probably N.Korea because people have always found ways to get around sanctions.

I guess the tax deductions for the equipment that had to be destroyed also makes sense. I doubt the Russians will allow the deductions, but they might as well try.

Depends where they try to claim them I guess. Given it deliberately destroyed stock, I doubt it'd be deductable in pretty much any tax jurisdiction. They may just write down the stock value to zero and try and claim the loss in Luxemburg, Ireland or the US. Can't remember where their Russia business was parented, but it's the usual web of SPVs and inter-company trades to minimise tax. As businesses were given warnings about sanctions, Cisco could probably have removed the tin, so the loss may get disallowed. Or maybe Russia will fine them for not complying with e-waste rules. Which gets a bit pointless because Cisco, being US and Russia being.. on the naughty step can't trade or transact anyway.

Which leaves the curious bit, ie how Cisco would still have employees in Moscow. Maybe they've got some exemptions to allow a clean-up crew to remain and be paid, otherwise AFAIK they'd be in breach of the sanctions. That stuff generally gets very complicated, and very risky, ie could the remnants have contracts with Russian accountants or lawyers, or transact with Russian banks? Other countries have been pretty much ignoring sanctions and are still doing business in and with Russia, so presumably there are legal-ish workarounds.

Microsoft ditches plans for 500,000 sq ft London office

Re: Desk wars

Problem with desk sharing. Monday and Friday generally not a problem. Tue-Thur can be hard, especially if your team is allowed to only book specific desks or banks, the release for the desks is a little in advance and some pillock books them regardless of them even attempting to come in. Oh, and if you are off when they are released, good luck.

Manglement are f'ng idiots. I had this kind of conversation before I struck out on my own. Be excited everybody! We're moving to a hotdesk environment! Just like when you played musical chairs when you were lil children. Yey!

So we managed to negotiate assigned seating on account of regularly being buried in bids, designs and general paperwork, some of which needed to be kept secured. Plus whiteboards to huddle around while we tried to figure out how to make whatever sales just sold or marketing dreamed up actually work. We still had to deal with assorted people nabbing our desks, then got complaints that it was 'unfair' that we could just walk in, sit down and get to work. So I just pointed HR at the bit of the contract saying I was expected to be at my desk by 0900 and asked where the desk was?

We parted ways not long after.

It's ironic that MS pushes stuff like Teams, yet sill clings to old-fashioned ideas like being inside a physical office. I'm also unsuprised that it's employees might be.. somewhat reluctant to move from Reading to London given that commute is one of the most expensive, congested and unreliable train journeys in the world. Americans are used to long commutes, but I've had a few US execs and visitors be stunned by just how long it takes and how much it costs to get from LHR to Reading. Especially as it's only 50-60 miles.. And thanks to big tech, or just commuting in general, places like Reading are as expensive, if not more than London.

Parts of UK booted offline as Virgin Media suffers massive broadband outage

Re: Expansion? Don't make me laugh

As such while Virgin may have an ambition to compete with Openreach as a wholesale fibre provider I don't think they have the momentum to achieve that.

The problem was more with the management, or lack thereof. Plus internal divisions, ie splits between wholesale/retail and sometimes some regulatory PITA to deal with. But basically boils down to budgets and silos, and then finance deciding speculative investment was a bad thing. Even though as you say, if you don't make sensible investments, you don't grow your customer base and risk eroding it. So the first customer to move into that new estate gets told 'no service' because the installation costs would mostly get loaded onto that first connection.. Which is especially frustrating when the developer's on board and willing to do the civils, and even help with a bit of marketing. Virgin high speed broadband is available!

So all rather short-sighted. Retail gets new prospects, Wholesale gets to keep some revenues even if the customer decides to switch because you can still rent that VLAN to another ISP.

Sic transit, gloria monday*..

From the Cloudflare link..

https://radar.cloudflare.com/as5089?range=1d

And a quick pre-caffeinated eyeball of the routing advertisments.. disruptions to other UK ISPs makes sense. So it went from announcing a normal 625 routes to 616k, and ultimately 802k at around 0800. So looks like another AS7007 event, and.. oops. Curious why Cloudflare says this-

No route leaks originated by or affecting this AS detected

At the last CIDR report, a full routing table was 938852 routes, so it looks like Virgin leaked pretty much everything. Unless they managed to do some pretty spectaculary inverse route aggregation. So not suprising there were wider issues with peers and transit customers. Sometimes adding redist all-the-things isn't a good idea. Once properly caffeinated, will have a look at the links in the artical, because if they caught the actual announcements, the problem should be fairly obvious.

Bank rewrote ads for infosec jobs to stop scaring away women

Re: Autistic People too

I'd argue that this is the better 'deselector' for the neurodiverse. As someone on the spectrum, I read this as someone who has no clue about neurodiversity and will push 'team-building' and other non-required-but-really-required social extracurriculars down my throat.

I'd argue you need a mix of skills/talents/abilities in a team. You want people who are strong at analysing data. This is what normal traffic looks like.. so what's this pattern that's just appeared? You want people who are intuitive or creative and can 'think outside the box'. So people that can look at a new system and figure out unexpected ways to break it. What happens if I try this? Why is that employee or visitor trying that? Then you'll probably need people who can do the more social skills who can observe people, and figure out if they're up to no good. Then patiently explain it to HR in ways they might understand.

And then because to perform that role well, you really need (or should want) a neurodiverse team. Which means managing that team to keep them happy and maximise their performance. A while ago a GCHQ chap wrote about this, and the benefits and challenges of managing a team like that. Part of which is keeping an eye on their mental (and physical sometimes) health. Plus also sometimes shielding them from company-wide, mandatory team building 'social' events that have no benefit, and might be stressful for some employees. Challenge then is to figure out team building exercises that help the team understand each other's strengths and weaknesses, and creates a more effective and flexible team.

Paid and legacy Twitter verification now indistinguishable

Well I've heard of him, and I'm not from the USA. I feel like he's one of the most famous sports people on the planet,

Wasn't that because he had dodgy knees or something? Neil Rutter is far more famous after winning the World Championship 4 times in a row, and I think will be a strong contender to win again in August.

Who are "The MSM". Please be explicit and exhaustive when compiling the list. I'd love to know.

I'd love to know as well. The article mentions NYT, plus-

Other media companies refusing to pay include CNN, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, BuzzFeed, the Washington Post, and Vox.

All familiar names associated with the term 'MSM', although in the case of CNN and their plummeting ratings, I'm not sure if they really count as 'mainstream' any more. But they're also notable for leaning far to the left, having dishonourable mentions in the Twitter files, and a general dislike of both Musk and the concepts of free speech since his take-over of their favorite toy.

(I am curious now if Fox will pay, or even the Bbc. I suspect yes to both given both can afford it. One gets views, the other gets gifted probably close to £4bn a year now, plus all it's income from commercial activities.)

Because posting on Twitter isn't advertising.

Sure it is. There's a whole ecosystem based on 'influencers' promoting their 'brands' (ie themselves), which then translates into advertising and sponsorship deals. Or for the MSM, promoting news stories that drive viewers to their or their employer's websites.

Posting on Twitter is free

Nope. Distributing tweets costs money, just as dstributing newspapers does. This is the reason why pre-Musk Twitter burned collosal amounts of cash and never made any money.

..but like everyone else's tick icon, it is worthless. I don't pay for worthless things and neither will most companies.

I know this, you know this, and it's one of the reasons I don't waste money on a TV Licence. But if it's 'worthless', why all the fuss about removing the tick? Surely all the complaints about being de-loused suggest current tick users see some value in the service, but just don't want to pay for it.

No, it wouldn't, since it is still easy enough to check the history without a tick icon, but given your list of suspects, I doubt you ever do that level of research.

So what you're saying is that it's possible to do some sender verification on tweets that don't have a tick? If so, again why are people so bothered? As for research, if you read the link I gave you, you'll see that none (from memory) are suspects given they've been charged and fined by the SEC. But I've never used Twitter, or most 'social' media because as you say, I find them worthless. As the old saying goes, if it's free, then the product they're selling is probably you..

Re: There's a browser extension to fix that....

I would guess that those who use twitter would like to know if someone they are following is real, and not just a scammer.

Nope, that won't help you. See for example-

https://www.courthousenews.com/sec-charges-eight-celebrities-over-promotion-of-cryptocurrency-on-social-media/

According to an SEC settlement filing, Lohan, who moved to Dubai in 2014, was paid $10,000 to promote the cryptocurrency tokens on social media.

"Exploring #DeFi and already liking $JST, $SUN on $TRX. Super fast and 0 fee. Good job @justinsuntron,” the "Freaky Friday" star posted on Twitter in February 2021.

Pretty sure she has/had a tick. Never heard of most of the other 7, but not uncommon for 'influencers' to get paid for stuff like this. Why someone might be acting on financial advice from Lohan is a different question.

II think 'd consider it very useful if I twitted.

There's your first mistake. Reagan may have said 'Trust, but verify', but he didn't mean look for the tick. Developing criticial thinking skills is a far, far better defence.

The closest model is syndicated stories. Twitter would pay for them and its own advertising on its own site would recover the cost of the syndication fees.

Nope. Closest model is paying for services. Businesses tweet to drive traffic, subscription fees and ad revenues. Businesses would expect to pay for TV or radio ads, why should they expect the Internet to do that for free? Especially when again, they've been busily implementing paywalls, monetising their user's data and lobbying for more money to be sent their way. Plus they're struggling with falling subscribers, increased competition and rapidly decreasing trust.

Not sure what Trump has to do with content licensing

Well, you may or may not have noticed but he's been in the news recently. A lot. He's also been generating a lot of Twitter traffic, mostly unverified and currently unverifiable. But look on the bright side, if the NYT, Pelosi or even the Whitehouse lose their ticks, it'll make it easier for them to deny they ever said stuff.

Re: Sure

...the state of California to become a place no one wants to live. It is so frustrating for them that neither of these things ever shows any sign of happening!

Nah, not frustrating, just amusing and inevitable. But here's a story from some 'right wing nutjobs'-

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/02/california-population-decline-trend-covid

California’s population has shrunk for the second year in a row, according to newly released figures.

Officials blamed the decrease on declining birth rates, higher deaths from the pandemic and fewer people moving into the state from elsewhere in the US. California lost 117,552 people in 2021, putting its population at 39,185,605, the California department of finance said on Monday.

That was from a year ago, and it's been shrinking again since then. It's much the same story for NYC. Slight snag for both is the impact on the tax base. Wealthy people move out, taking their income, assets and spending with them. People that do move in often have no income, and increase the costs of providing social services. The extreme left has never had a sound grasp of economics, and don't understand why this is a bit of a problem. Places like LA and NYC aren't quite at Detroit levels of sound monetary policy, but that time is approaching fast. Meanwhile, other states like Texas and Florida welcome people's money.

This is the way it usually works, the flow of payments goes towards the content producer.

Sure. For centuries, paper mill owners paid businesses like the NYT to have ink applied to their virgin paper. The way it usually works is that there's payment for services. The MSM obviously doesn't value the service, so the service should be withdrawn.

There are simple solutions though, which could also benefit the wider society. Twitter regulary adds warnings to people's content, although less than it used to before the change in control. One notable exception being a polite reminder that the US legal system hasn't required defendents in trials prove their innocence. Well, not until recently anyway. But given we live in the era of fake news and misinformation, all Musk needs to do is add a warning that tweets are unverified.

This may upset some people who need their sense of identity validated by 3rd parties, but there are costs involved in providing that service. Well, normally anyway.

(Hope everyone's stocked up on popcorn ahead of the trial of the century. I really hope Trump loses, because that will establish a few interesting precedents that can be used to prosecute other politicians.)

You wish the NYT didn't generate enough money to pay for anything it wanted.

It's just a little strange that they use paywalls and require subscriptions to view their product, yet don't want to pay another publisher to distribute their content. Especially as the MSM are also keen on charging other 'big tech' businesses fees for services like news aggregation. Also not sure why they're bothered about ticks when many of their 'news' stories are unverified anyway.

And it's a spat that really just makes him look even more of a thin skinned Twat then he already did. I was surprised that was possible. I really was...

I dunno. I think it's a sign of the times that despite the MSM moving their content behind paywalls, they're still not generating enough money to pay for their use of the 'essential' Twitter service.

FTX cryptovillain Sam Bankman-Fried charged with bribing Chinese officials

Re: Life imprisonment

A friend of mine lives in a very old house, which has an oubliette under the living room floor

Ok, I'm jealous. It's a fun word to say, and a more useful feature than developers include in many 'luxury' homes. Also perfect to integrate with technological advances like Ring door cameras, trap-doors, slides, and automatic leopard feeders. Perfect for dealing with unwanted door-to-door salespeople!

(think I'd link mine to a door system that borrows from telephone IVR systems, and prompts visitors with pertinent questions like "Are you trying to sell me something?" and "Do you know what an oubliette is?" Might even be able to make it legal(ish) and avoid charges of false imprisonment if you incorporate some escape room puzzles, or maybe just some mechanism for depositing unwanted callers away from your property. Hmm.. a humane trebuchet perhaps?)

Re: The NYC case is small potatoes

Um you do know that the US is pretty much an autocracy? Sleepy Joe ruling by executive order. (or rather his handlers)

Joe is the best. Easy to control, just keep him in ice cream. He likes ice cream. Keep his fridge full, and he'll say whatever you want. He's also immune to the brain-freeze people get from eating ice cream. What a guy!

Or, it could be that Joe has outlived his usefulness. His ramblings about ice cream and being Dr Jill's wife were curious. The MSM were presumably told to cut over to Joe for a reassuring message from the President of the most powerful nation in the world. And they got ice cream. I've seen previous stuff where this has happened, and it's usually been handled better.. Stick a place holder saying "Please stand by for a statement from POTUS". Meanwhile, his handlers can be reloading the autocue (or Neurolink) with a prepared, statesman-like statement. Instead, it cut straight to a guy who looked blissfully unaware of why he was there.

I kinda wonder if his handlers are trying to tell us something, and that was a setup. No, you don't want a second term.

This alone would have been enough for me to tell my sprog to get lost and face the music. I'd also be hanging my head in shame wondering where the hell I went wrong. Here's hoping SBF gets everything he deserves (a small cell, for the rest of his life).

I doubt it. Take a selfie in Capitol Hill, get locked up in solitary. Steal billions, get house arrest. As he already appears to have broken his bail conditions and committed further crimes, why isn't he now in jail? Prosecuters could perhaps waive the $250m bond, or pursue that.

Scientists speak their brains: Please don’t call us boffins

Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

I thought they were called farmers, not boffins.

I'm sure there are farmers boffin in the fields, along with muffin the mules and dobbin the donkeys.. But physicists also study in fields, often electromagnetic and gravitational. Problem is phsyics is hard, although..

There are six types, known as flavors, of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom

6 genders of quarks! Bit of rebranding and less need to worry about not having a 'u' in flavor, which is not very inclusive but then it doesn't have an 'i' either. Might want to rebrand the strange quark to something potentially less offensive. There's also a huge issue that much of physics contains things named after dead white men, so there's scope to make this more inclusive as well. Rename Fermions to OGradyions? Paris is burning, a dead celeb grabs the headlines. Perhaps we have the wrong priorities?

Or perhaps the IOP does. Rather than doing right-on, politically correct boffoonery, why not get back to basics and look at the way STEM is taught in schools. Some of it will still be hard, but figure out ways to make it interesting and appeal to those young, malleable brains. Make science cool again! There's some great science communicators on YT who've figured out ways to get complex messages across in interesting and entertaining ways, eg Kyle Hill. No idea what his audience's demographics are, but maybe that's something the IOP could ask, or study?

Something I've noticed is after watching different communicators explaining concepts, I generally grasp the idea more than I would in some of the formal lectures that are online. Latest is pondering how to patent ZPE, assuming that could be made to work. A pretty complex area of physics with some diverging views, but a neat concept. Except if you could tap into ZPE, how would you patent this given patent offices routinely reject anything where Eout>Ein? Could be fun arguing that it's not 'perpetual motion', it's quite the opposite.

Ammo-maker says TikTok's datacenter site could deprive it of electricity

The weapon systems that T-14 was specifically supposed to be well protected against.

You answered your own question. M1s and Leopards have been destroyed or disabled by older generation ATGMs, or in the case of Iraq, an RPG made a neat hole widthways through an M1. But again, why risk the intelligence loss of a T-14 when you can just use artillery or missiles to destroy or disable tanks you know you can defeat, before they even get into range?

..but then deploy older vehicles that are very vulnerable to those weapons, with subsequent loss of vehicle and trained crew.

Both sides face exactly the same problem given the attrition rates. One one side, there's a limited number of Ukrainians being trained on NATO tanks, but a larger pool of reservists who're familiar with Ukrainian/Russian kit. On the other, a similarly smaller pool of Russians trained on T-14s, but familiar with the older models.

Again it's down to logistics and manpower. Or policy. Why are modern economys like Norway and FInland struggling to get enough electricity to power their industries?

Yes, Iraq had lots of those. It worked well, didn't it?

That was 1991 and a very different environment. And yes, there are also differences in export versions of both Russian and NATO/Western weapon systems.

Alternately it might be a standing joke that Russia's T14 stands for "Total of 14 Built" and they might be dusting off T54's (having run out of T90's, T80's, T72's, T64's and T62's) because they don't have anything else left.

Why would Russia need (or want) to risk it's T-14's in a conflict against a few dozen tanks designed in the 1970s to counter those 'antique' Russian tanks? There have been some videos of T-14s operating in Ukraine, but there have also been Tik Tok and other videos showing 'new' MBTs, AFVs and IFVs being transported into Ukraine. Again it's a simple logistics thing. According to our trusted media, Russia ran out of missiles, tanks and ammunition early last year, yet the conflict shows no sign of stopping. We've been steadily de-industrialising and crippling our economies, Russia.. Hasn't. Russia can produce exponentially more MBTs than the UK currently can, and restarting tank production will take years. Or maybe the EU can create a EuroTank, which would probably take decades to agree a design(s) and start production.

And this weeks threat of nuclear war over them being provided with standard anti tank shells suggests Mr Putin has extreme confidence in the ability of his super powered new 1000-1500 tanks to deal with those 28.

Uranium is a toxic heavy metal that is environmentally persistent. Not exactly the kind of mineral powder you'd want fertilising Ukraine's rich, agricultural lands. Especially if you're hoping to export that produce to the EU any time in the next few centuries. And why would you assume Russia needs tanks? Most of the AFV destroyed on both sides of this conflict have been destroyed by missiles or artillery. Russia seems to have more of that and more production capacity than we do.

Either you know f*ck all about Russian and Soviet politics, or you're a Kremlin troll.

Of course I am. So.. can you go borrow books or videos written in Ukrainian from Russian libraries? You can't do the reverse in Ukraine, because they've been removed and burned. Evicting the monks from a monastery in Kiev has been in the news recently. Well, some news. I'm fairly sure freedom of religion and expression are core concepts of our 'western values' though.

However, this is changing, ie we're busy pulling down statues, renaming buildings and roads in the name of 'de-colonisation'. Or, back to the subject of TikTok.. we're working on bannning that because Chinese. Or maybe it just demonstrates some of the things that are wrong with the West-

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

In March 2023, the UK government announced that TikTok would be banned on electronic devices used by ministers and other employees, amid security concerns relating to the app's handling of user data.

We're IT types, so might be wondering why TikTok or other social media apps were ever allowed on official devices in the first place. Or, perhaps more worrying is the good/bad news from the US-

In 2023, the United States Government is trying to pass the DATA and RESTRICT act. The DATA Act was introduced by Michael McCaul, if passed the bill the DATA Act would ban selling non-public personal data to third party buyers.

The DATA Act is arguably a good thing, about time and arguably doesn't go far enough. Like it should also ban harvesting of non-public personal data by first parties. Naturally 'Big Tech' is opposed to this proposal. The 'RESTRICT Act' is far, far worse-

This will let the government investigate and possibly ban any site they deem a threat to national security. A violation of the ban by a US national would be punishable by a fine of up to $1,000,000 and/or up to 20 years in prison. While RESTRICT act doesn't call TikTok by name, it has been heavily implied as this bill is being written at the same time elected officials are calling for the ban of TikTok..

It doesn't mention TikTok by name intentionally because the scope is much wider. Any app, company or individual deemed a threat to 'national security', for example by commenting on 'vid, challenging narratives about this conflict, or maybe questioning politicians business dealings could be thrown in jail for 20 years. It doesn't go quite so far as to shoot the messenger, but could be used to close down or control 'free' speech on Twitter, FaceBook etc etc.

Please understand that by 'defeat', I mean 'kill every single one of them.'

Therein lies the problem when the 'enemy' is an ideology. Sure, you could kill every follower, but alternatively you use soft power and do the hearts and minds thing. This is perhaps harder, and a lot less profitable. But if you manage to convince your enemy that your way of life is better, then the enemy loses support and you eventually win.

Between the Russians and the Americans, they spent 40+ years failing to do so.

But part of the problem was those were another proxy conflict. So while Russia was the occupier, we assisted their opponents with weapons, training etc. Then when Russia withdrew, we also got bored and moved on, creating the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the process. We did much the same in Iraq with the Kurds.. Rise up and overthrow your oppressors. So they did, got slaughtered and then abandoned. It's much the same with Ukraine where we interfered in what's essentially an ethnic conflict between Galacian-inspired nationalists and other ethnic/cultural groups like Russians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles etc who ended up on the 'wrong' side of a line when borders were re-drawn following WW2 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rather than creating a vibrant, multi-cultural society that reflected a shared history, the post-2014 government decided to de-Russify Ukraine, burn books, ban culture and are in the process of creating a schism between various branches of the Orthodox Church.

That kind of policy has never worked out well, not even in Cambodia.

Our armies by contrast have vastly superior direct combat capabilities (eg tanks with a much better armour and range than the Russian ones) and therefore by virtue of having direct fire tank guns that outrange the Russian ones we have proportionately less artillery, and also rely upon air support by guided bombs from aircraft and attack helicopters for longer range support. If you look at the Gulf or Iraq wars, you'll see that a western military will seek to close the range and tear the opposition to shreds in a brief intensely destructive engagement; both the Gulf war and Iraq wars lasted around a month from the first shots to the opposition surrendering.

Problem with that is this is a very different conflict, and our opponents learned lessons from watching that, and other Western-backed or initiated conflicts. We've just had the anniversary of the Balkans conflict, which resulted in the destruction of Yugoslavia. That relied heavily on air power and gaining air superiority, much as GW1 & 2 did. Do the 'shock and awe' thing, destroy your opponents GBAD, energy and logistics infrastructure, and bomb your opponent to the negotiating table. That didn't work quite as well in Afghanistan, and isn't working out very well for the Saudis in Yemen, and certainly hasn't been working out for any of the parties in the Ukraine conflict.

So Russia kinda noticed we rely a lot on air power. So it developed ways to counter air superiority and came up with very effective layered GBAD that can detect, engage and destroy aircraft and incoming missiles at long ranges. It also appears to be gaining air supremacy as it looks like Russia's using more FAB-500 and heavier guided bombs (KAB-500x). Russia used those pretty extensively against terrorists in Syria. Obviously a 500kg bomb will have more impact compared to the 7-8kg of explosives in a typical 155mm round, especially against the heavily fortified defensive lines Ukraine had been building since 2014.

Then there's tanks. As the Bbc spins it-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65095126

Eighteen cutting-edge main battle tanks were delivered after Ukrainian crews were trained to use them.

That's 18 Leopards for a 1,000km contact line. Sure, we're also sending 4 Challenger 2s and some other assorted AFVs. Meanwhile, our media is poking fun at Russia dusting off T-55s, which it has a lot of. Sure, a modern NATO tank might have better armour, optics, stabilisation etc but as someone famously said, quantity has a quality of it's own. Russia's T-55's have undergone various phases of modernisation and upgrades, but they'll probably get used as assault guns. There, an armoured vehicle with a 10km+ range is still very effective in a layered defence. Any Ukrainian offensive would have to advance to contact through air, artillery, field/assault gun and ATGM range. MBTs that lose their combined arms support don't tend to last long, and modern MBTs are still vulnerable to mobility or mission kills, if tracks or sensors are damaged. Then it's hauling them all the way back to Poland where they can be repaired.

And then there's drones, both as surveillance and more direct threats. These have probably been the biggest game changer of this conflict because they're cheap, easy to produce and have proven highly effecitive in multiple roles.

And then there's the boring logistics. Russia claims to be producing 1-1,500 new tanks every year. The UK can produce a grand total of.. Zero Challenger 2's annually. Russia's also been busily churning out ammunition, missiles and bombs far faster than NATO can. We expected the 'shock and awe' sanctions to bring Russia to it's knees, but that's backfired spectacularly. War consumes vast quantities of steel. We have been de-industrialising. It requires a lot of energy. We've been making that scarce, unreliable and expensive. It needs lots of chemicals, and we've been de-industrialising there as well, with disastrous consequences.. So the Dutch and their War on Nitrogen. Nitrogen compounds are essential for explosives and fertilisers, and gas is often used as a feedstock. We're banning that, and have sanctioned imports from Russia, who're sitting on a shedload of strategic resources.

the Soviet Union funded terrorism to reduce trust and ferment internal troubles in western democracies during the cold war with this intent in mind,

We've been busily doing that as well. See Belarus and Georgia as examples. Again this policy of 'regime change' and 'color revolutions' is backfiring, and more nations are starting to pivot towards BRICS.

The most bizarre online replacement items in your delivered shopping?

Cats are obligate carnivores -- in the wild, they *must* eat meat. Dogs are more omnivores than true carnivores. And taurine is something that you get in meat and fish.

Interesting, and thanks to the folks who pointed out taurine. I've never been a cat person other than the occasional cat-sitting duties, where food was provided. Hopefully cat owners are aware, especially any vegetarian/vegan ones who might try to impose the same diet on their pet.

Dog food as they'd run out of the brand of cat food my wife had specified

Perhaps a dumb question but.. Is there much difference? Or is there much difference in price? I've only had dogs, but remember tins of dog food being larger that cat. Figuring on both eating pretty much the same thing*, dog food might work out cheaper.

*Well, dogs perhaps win on that one given mine would eat anything. Bean bags, soap..

Microsoft scrambles to fix Windows 11 'aCropalypse' privacy-battering bug

Re: User negligence

If you don't vet the behavior go to software tools you use, you are the equivalent of someone who buys a car on Craigslist without checking the mechanics that then proceeds to try and drive it from California to New York.

Most apps (or even operating systems) don't really let you peek under the hood. So how would you check, other than maybe looking at the file size? Sometimes systems are too smart for their own good. I saw another strange MS feature this morning. I have a desk clock that was still showing GMT/UTC. Windows fired up and told me the time was GMT+2. Clock settings were set to London, auto DST on, and for whatever reason it decided to tack on another hour.

Barred from US tech, Huawei claims to have built its own 14nm chip design suite

Re: Intel

Marketing will always find somewhere to go. But looking on the bright side, once they do trend to zero, atoms will have nowhere to move and chips will become self-powered, self-cooling, and Intel will have saved the planet!

Cisco kindly reveals proof of concept attacks for flaws in rival Netgear's kit

Re: Telnet?

Really? The use of the word hidden suggests to me that this is an undocumented telnet backdoor? That is a vulnerability in itself.

It's a feature..

But why telnet? And a local password?

Because Telnet is widely implemented on many PCs, servers and iThings. So you do some spearfishing, get into a device on the inside of the network. Then telnet from the 'trusted' side of the network, use the backdoor to open the front door, and Bob can then invite Alice in to party. It always used to amaze me the number of businesses that should have known better that thought they only needed firewalls on the outside of their networks.

Unknown actors deploy malware to steal data in occupied regions of Ukraine

The alternative is making the information public in the hope that the Ukrainian military will find and act on it before the Russian military found it and changed their plan, but the risk is that someone else would impersonate me and post false information, so that method has risks too.

Luckily, it's not that difficult.. Sort of. So Ukraine's had tip lines for reporting this kind of thing to it's SBU since the conflict started. Most intelligence services have websites with contact info. If you're wanting to share what you've found out of a sense of duty, just contact them. If you want to try and do that anonymously, and you're a hacker, you could probably figure out a dropbox to leave it on a server somewhere and just let them know where to find the data. But they'd probably be naturally suspicious because they're institutionally paranoid, and check that what you're trying to feed them isn't disinformation. Any decent media organisation would probably want to do the same thing, but then James Vasquez has just blown up in another Ghost of Kiev kinda way.

In a war, i'd assume that ad-hoc hackers will be defacto working for the state and would be going for information with some form of useful application just based on "what would I do?".

I think it's one of those things where the law probably hasn't caught up with war. If I was to sneak into a critical water pumping installation, place charges and blow it up, that would probably be considered an act of war, if I was acting for a state. If instead I sit at my desk, mess with the SCADA systems and make it water-hammer itself to bits.. same result, different consequences? So at what point does cyberwarfare become real warfare.

There are also potential issues wrt volunteers, no matter how well intentioned creating politcal or practical problems for their governments. So maybe I hack a pumping station in Russia, and Russia retaliates by destroying 10 in Ukraine. Governments generally like to co-ordinate and control this sort of stuff, so freelancing might do more harm than help. Plus if you're hacking without official authorisation, it's still a crime. Ukraine may choose not to prosecute, or it may not, or you might just find yourself considered an unlawful enemy combatant without any of the rights or protections offered to lawful combatants.

Can anybody see what i'm missing? Perhaps X food amount is being delivered to Y location gives Russian troop strengths?

There's an assumption that it's being done by a state actor, not ad-hoc hackers. Ukraine has/had a thriving IT sector with a lot of software developers, including a lot of indie game devs. Or GSC Game World, who gave us S.T.A.L.K.E.R. But it also has/had a fair number of cybercriminals doing their own thing. Often those ended up lumped in to generic 'Russian hackers' because the western media has never really understood the cultural ties, differences, or the way organised crime tends to work in that part of the world.

So it could just be opportunistic, and the targets just the ones they managed to spear. If it's state-backed, it could make sense given logistics wins wars, or special military operations. Our media keeps telling us that Bakhmut is insignificant, yet a quick look at a map shows it's logistically important for that part of Ukraine given the road and rail links. So it could be intelligence gathering with a view to disrupting logistics and admininstration. Mostly that's likely to be a civilian target given Russia's military is probably using it's own logistics. It could be an effort to obtain lists of 'collaborators'. Or it could be something that will be followed up with a demand to pay BTC.

Xi, Putin declare intent to rule the world of AI, infosec

Even if the ITU where by accept NewIP how many non-authoritarian countries are going to seriously adopt it? It will just discredit the ITU even further after their last attempt to hijack the internet

But this time, it's different. I think I first heard the term 'Balkanisation of the Internet' back in the '90s from a paper by.. Lawrence Lessig? But it's something that has been happening. It's not the ITU, it's the IETF and originally concerns were over US dominance of critical elements of the Internet. Since then, we've had countries self-balkanising by inserting 'Great Firewalls' between the public Internet and their country's portions of it. We have 'liberal' governments like the UK and EU demanding their bits of the Internet become nanny-nets, free of "disinformation" that hasn't had prior approval. We've had demands that Russia should be given the UDP and de-peered from Internet.

So it's perhaps inevitable that countries finding themselves on the "sanctions" list look at ways to route around the problem. It's something that's always happened with sanctions, ie the country(s) affected focus on becoming more self-reliant and route around the problem.

Or from the article-

So there you have it: two autocracies planning to work together to build tech the rest of the world is increasingly reluctant to sell them,

That assumes there's just two. We've been very generous with our sanctions, and countries will be looking at how we've been flexing our political and economic muscles, and might be considering alternatives like BRICS. We've just had Indonesia telling people to ditch Mastercard & Visa. We've had a Chinese-brokered deal between Iran and Saudi. There's been a warming of relations between Middle Eastern countries and Syria.

But the problem is not tech we're increasingly reluctant to sell them, it's the tech that we've been relying on and now can't buy. Or BRICs may decide no longer sell, or impose punitive tariffs on. Most of India's mobile network depends on Huawei because they 'stole' a significant lead on 5G tech and getting that to market at reasonable prices. We may have decided to rip & replace Huawei's tin, other countries aren't doing this. We love our iThings, but they're mostly made in China. Manufacturers have been trying to diversify and shift production to countries like Vietnam, but they may end up joining BRICS.

Eventually our politicians might realise that their authoritarian policies have backfired massively, and simply accelerated a transition towards a more multi-polar world.. But I get the feeling it's too late.

Putin to staffers: Throw out your iPhones, or 'give it to the kids'

Re: That'll help

Frankly, I'm not shocked. The key words here are "lawful" and "legally".

That's currently a bit of a grey area whilst the limits of 'lawful' and 'legally' get tested in the courts. But you probably should be shocked at the powers 'freedom and democracy' loving nations are giving themselves. Or private enterprises are just taking, ie all the data slurping that doesn't have the protections in lawful intercept legislations. Users just grant the same (or greater) powers to data slurpers when the click on the 'OK!' buttons.

But it's a very slippery slope. Ursula von der Liar previously wanted to use the vaccine 'passport' to restrict services to the unvaccinated. Converting that into a EuroID makes that a lot simpler. Quick ID check, and service is denied. Dare to violate lockdown and a fine is automatically deducted from it's linked wallet. Obey, Citizen. People raised China as an example of an oppressive state, yet seem blissfully aware of our own states are doing.

Ever heard about Echelon?

Yep. Ever heard of 'Black Rooms'? See-

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

Lawful intercept is nothing new, and IMHO, is a neccessary function of a democracy. We fund various agencies to keep us safe and allow us to go about our business. There are people that mean us harm, or want to force us to change our way of life. I'm referring to criminals here, not politicians. So we've allowed lawful intercepts because it allows our law enforcement and security services to keep us safe. Problem is technology has made that harder, and also we've allowed a lot of scope-creep that can turn a public safety tool into a very powerful tool of oppression.

This government might be benevolent, but what about the next one, or the one after?

Re: That'll help

I'm interested to know more about this. Sources please?

Here's one that was prepared earlier-

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31996G1104:EN:HTML

Council Resolution of 17 January 1995 on the lawful interception of telecommunications

... Whereas in accordance with a decision by the Trevi Ministers in December 1991 a study should be made of the effects of legal, technical and market developments within the telecommunications sector on the different interception possibilities and of what action should be taken to counter the problems that have become apparent,

HAS ADOPTED THIS RESOLUTION:

1. The Council notes that the requirements of Member States to enable them to conduct the lawful interception of telecommunications, annexed to this Resolution ('the Requirements`), constitute an important summary of the needs of the competent authorities for the technical implementation of legally authorized interception in modern telecommunications systems.

2. The Council considers that the aforementioned Requirements should be taken into account in the definition and implementation of measures which may affect the legally authorized interception of telecommunications and requests Member States to call upon the Ministers responsible for telecommunications to support this view and to cooperate with the Ministers responsible for Justice and Home Affairs with the aim of implementing the Requirements in relation to network operators and service providers.

And then became enshrined in national laws of the EU's member states.. Where most already had similar legislation already on their books in the form of national communications acts. Then the EU followed up with their 'We remember you wholesale' Directive, aka Data Retention. And coming soon, the glue layer-

https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-digital-identity_en

Every time an App or website asks us to create a new digital identity or to easily log on via a big platform, we have no idea what happens to our data in reality. That is why the Commission will propose a secure European e-identity. One that we trust and that any citizen can use anywhere in Europe to do anything from paying your taxes to renting a bicycle. A technology where we can control ourselves what data is used and how.

Which has the typical political weasel words. When she says 'we', she doesn't mean you or I. It means they will know you or I have rented a bicycle, and can potentially disallow that transaction. And where it says 'can use', that's just the creeping compulsion we saw with the UK's ID Card Act. Currently we can do all these things already, it's just they have no knowledge or control over it, so eventually it'll become 'must use'.

And of course current proposals suggest that your EuroID and wallet(?!?) will be on your 'smart' phone. Because everyone carries those all the time, right? And they're totally secure.. And it'll never be used to nudge European's Ids into compliance, or submission. You mustn't do that. You can't do that. Now, you really can't do that..

And people think China's bad?

IT phone home: How to run up a $20K bill in two days and get away with it by blaming Cisco

Re: Ah, the good'ol days..

In fact, it wasn't until Covid-19 forced those broadcasters home that ISDN was replaced with VoIP. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marksparrow/2020/07/02/british-company-rescues-radio-industry-with-a-brilliant-device-for-broadcasting-from-home/

Arguably a step back. One of the reasons I loved my job was meeting clients who did neat things like this. One was a radio station (or collection of local stations) that showed me their studio. It had the usual things I expected, like a studio booths.. But no broadcasters in them. It did have servers running playlists that the presentation team could use to build their shows, and control all that from their home or just a remote studio. ISDN was great for that given B-channel bandwidth and voice clarity, and being able to isolate the data components. Client was considering 'upgrading' to VoIP, and after looking at how they were running it, my advice was "Don't", at least not yet. Sure, you can use uncompressed codecs that give ISDN-equivalent quality, but you're at the mercy of a packet-based network with all the congestion risks.

It was one of those bellhead vs nethead things. At the time, networks were being built for quality, reliability and determinism, ie circuit or channel switched using tech like ISDN and ATM.. But then along came TCP/IP that didn't (and still doesn't) deliver most of those things. And the next big thing is SDN, which is essentially trying to restore ATM-like capability back to the transmission layer.

Re: Ah, the good'ol days..

I never did it but was always intrigued, is this the same thing as "D-channel signalling" ?

Yup, but you weren't allowed to play. So ISDN generally presented as a BRI (Basic Rate Interface) with 2B+D where the B channels are 64Kbps, and the D channel 16Kbps. You couldn't normally do anything with the D channel because that was the Phone Company's playground and 'reserved' for signalling. In a practical sense, even though customers occasionally asked why they couldn't use the 16Kbps they were 'paying for', the answer was No, because you're paying for the 2B service. In practice it was to avoid people doing weird things that could potentially upset switches and interconnects and eat into engineer's beer & sleep time.

However.. It was also an X.25 thing, and data over the D channel was 'standardised' in X.31, and implemented in a few places. So Racal twigged that they could use X.31 for small, transactional data services (EPOS) and avoid call charges. Then also took a risk that EPOS would take off and offered the service to card companies at a modest fee per transaction (from memory, around 0.2p) and created quite the cash machine when transaction volumes ran at tens of millions a day. I think that generated enough to for Racal to seed a small mobile venture called 'Vodafone'. Was an interesting place, especially given the occasional opportunity to ask Racal Research if they could make us a test voice call generator for a VoIP project or other stuff. A few days later, a walkman in a box with some multiplexing arrived. Sadly, the idea of using neural nets for making a firewall didn't get as far because the stuff they were doing with those was heavily classified.

Ah, the good'ol days..

ISDN was often mocked as standing for "Integrated Still Don't kNow, but the Integrated Services Digital Network offered blazing-fast speeds up to 128 kilobits per second.

Never heard it called that, but more usually "Invention Subscribers Don't Need". First encounted it back in the late '80s while working for the Phone Company. Engineer turned up to install a line in our comms room. No idea who ordered it, or why, untill discovering that every site was to get an ISDN line because nobody else was ordering them and it made the installation numbers look a little better. We got told we could use it for a Group 4 fax machine. Then told we couldn't requisition one of those because nobody else was using them. When I left, it still had a post-it over the socket saying 'Not a POT'.

I don't think the UK had a flag charge, but we had a thing called 'telegraphing', which was to abuse the D-channel signalling to send data that the billing system at the time didn't measure. A well-known POS credit card terminal provider used that loophole, despite grumblings from the Phone Company, and I think later, Oftel. Other shenanigans came from the good'ol 0845 ISPs. At the time, 0845 numbers had a revenue sharing agreement between wholesaler and service provider. That had tarriffs for short and long duration calls, partly as an anti-telegraphing measure, and from memory, the outpayment was something like 2.4p/min for long duration, and 4p/min for short.

Ever wondered why there used to be so many authentication failures on good'ol dial-up ISPs? Call connects, billing triggers, RADIUS says 'nope', and collect those pennies..

Also used to hate ISDN backup solutions, especially when one large telco decided it would be a GoodIdea(tm) for us to pick up the costs of customer's ISDN calls when their leased lines went down. Took a while to convince the product manager that this was a risk, and to add an alert to the fault management system when ISDN lines were activated. Also had a lot of fun with unmanaged 'solutions', but quickly came up with a boiler plate response for users complaining their bills were so high. This was long before MS's auto-update attempts to phone home, or spam telemetry, but MS has always been very chatty with broadcasts and various discovery packets hitting dial router interfaces and bringing up the ISDN lines.. Which is still a big issue with telemetry spam, but mostly a cost issue for mobile Internet devices. Still amazes me that regulators haven't stomped on that one, but then mobile operators make a lot of money when they charge for data usage, and don't give customers control over their devices to disable all that junk.

Google Cloud's US-East load balancers are lousy with latency

Re: make a hasty move to another region

You know what they say about being able to tell when a salesman's lying. His lips move.

And they'll move faster. It's the standard drug dealer's approach to flogging cloudybollocks. Yes, you can do all that fancy stuff you saw in the marketing materials. But additional charges apply. Especially when marketing realise that everyone knows that customers should always read the small print, and their print can be very small. Or that the average human can react to something in around 300ms. So blink and you may miss the small print. But it's there..

Eufy security cams 'ignore cloud opt-out, store unique IDs' of anyone who walks by

Re: "working on new security protocols"

I'll keep saying it: We need a new specific IoT protocol built from the ground up with security as the first priority,

Nah, we have that already. All the 'telemetry' from our IoT thing is transmitted via HTTPS, and the data between thing and Cloud is encrypted. Ergo, as the thing's owner has no idea what it's transmitting, it's secure.

I think what is needed is strict enforcement of (mostly existing) data protection regulations. Most already work on the lines of requiring data controllers to store only the minimum personally identifiable information necessary, and generally with some form of consent. A camera that snaps any passer by, assigns a UID and stores it without either the device owner's consent or the data subject's consent would already seem in breach of UK Data Protection and GDPR regulations.. Which can come with large fines attached, and for cameras, has already been tested a few times in UK courts.

Call it the Cloud-Be-Gone Act (or Blue Skies?) where devices must comply with the minimum requirements, and give users a simple opt-out for cloud storage, and especially data sharing. Something as simple as a doorbell doesn't really need a 'cloud' to operate, just some local storage, a local server that can forward or answer 'net or mobile queries and is already a feature of many of those devices. They don't really need any cloudybollocks, so the ICO should take a long, hard look at why vendors are slurping that data.