Posts by Wzrd1

Japan pauses asteroid BOMBING raid – still no word from Bruce Willis?

Re: JAXA

"I immediately thought of war rocket Ajax."

I had forgotten that one, but instead thought of Operation Ajax.

Social media data is riddled with 'human behaviour errors'

Re: Faecebook results exclude people who dont give a shit about Faecebook

Fair enough, to be honest, I frequently call Facebook Fleecebook, courtesy of their games that players can excel in if they pay for X.*

*X being a variety of "items" used in the game.

The only reason I have a Facebook account is, it was the only way I could see my grandchildren while I was deployed. My daughter wouldn't e-mail me the photographs.

G+ was nice for a bit, but the quality of user declined and I'm rarely on that either. I mostly use that to keep track of some acquaintances.

Twitter is something I rarely use, but was recommended to me for professional advancement. Too much work for too little return. Useful for the latest propaganda from various agencies though (such as NASA (OK, it's not really propaganda, but one can give a bit of a ribbing to a good agency)).

One ponders one research topic that would be not skewed too horribly for Facebook as a data source. The incomprehensibility of things written there and the pain induced to a reader who comprehends the proper usage of they're, their, too, to, two and proper usage of the English language (both American and *real* English).*

*Hey, a language originating in England has to, by definition, be real English. ;)

Re: DurasnoPeach

The only realistic research that can be learned from social media, especially Facebook and more anonymous social media sites is how many assholes there are on the site.

It rather reminds me of "The Sixth Sense", with a more realistic twist. "I see assholes and they're everywhere and they don't know that they're assholes."

Well, that and the abject failure of the US educational system in teaching the differences in alike sounding words, such as to, too, two, they're, their, etc. But those typically make the sites anti-social media.

Syrian Electronic Army in news site 'hack' POP-UP MAYHEM

Re: Gigiya the Culprit

"If only we had a complete list of everyone affected by this hack, we'd have a great list of websites to avoid in future. Not because they're insecure, just because they're scum."

My company had part of its internet presence interrupted by this, according to our security teams.

My only remark was, *never* deal with anyone who uses GoDaddy.

Re: Al Jazeera Hackathon

As I personally know quite a few of the Am Jazeera team, I'll take their word for it, rather than your innuendo.

From the site:

"Canvas is a platform for experimentation, and it is being kicked off with an inaugural hackathon. We’re creating a space to explore and invent solutions to challenges that advance humanity while also pushing forward media and open source technologies. At the hackathon, you can collaborate with some of the most innovative minds in media and journalism to imagine the future of news and information. What will you create with a blank canvas? We are taking applications for designers, developers, media experts, and people with a passion for social innovation to join us for the inaugural Canvas hackathon on November 29th – December 1st, 2014."

Re: Adblocks......they're a security measure...

"Do it in the HOSTS file, it's cleaner, more foolproof and you don't need bloaty BHOs installed on every browser you use."

Been doing that myself after getting malware warnings from my antivirus/firewall. If it's alerting on malvertisment now, one shudders to consider zero day attacks that AV/FW may not notice.

The next big thing in medical science: POO TRANSPLANTS

Re: A while back

Been used for thousands of years to treat diarrhea diseases, including cholera.

Bedouins were known to pop camel droppings to treat diarrhea, to good effect and such usage was documented and revived interest in the practice, way back in WWI.

Renewable energy 'simply won't work': Top Google engineers

Nuclear, just not uranium based

Thorium reactors would be less expensive, as thorium is less rare than uranium. Thorium reactors can also "burn" the waste of uranium reactors, further reducing long term storage.

There are now designs for intrinsically safe units, where complete loss of coolant wouldn't cause an issue.

Forget the climate: Fatties are a much bigger problem - study

Obesity is a medical term that has moved quite far from BMI nonsense

Moderate obesity has increased risk of diabetes and atherosclerosis. Severe to morbidly obesity have tremendous risks of both diseases and more.

So, how does this come into giving some credence to what was written in the pseudo-study?

Diabetes is expensive to treat and decline is either rapid or gradual, depending on glycemic control. Arterial disease is also expensive to treat and decline is equally variable, but metrics on efficacy are not especially great for various controls.

That all said, something will always kill us, something will always e expensive to treat. Well, at least until we develop some kind of post scarcity society. I predict one chance of three of that happening, slim chance, fat chance and no chance.

Bang! You're dead. Who gets your email, iTunes and Facebook?

Well, my wife and daughters know my passwords

That came in handy in case I wasn't about to respond to an important e-mail and for the occasional file I may need from my computer and I was far away.

I also promised them to not tell my service providers when I pop off, so that they can access my accounts with ease.

That all said, I do believe that there will be a fine legal war between Google and Facebook upon my demise, for my data that they insist is theirs. ;)

More seriously, I imap my mail, so I then keep a copy on my local computer and back it up on a regular basis. I don't store important files online, they stay on my encrypted RAID arrays at home.

So, the worst that can happen if I pop off unexpectedly and prematurely is the vital signs failsafe monitor releases the laser sharks.

Privacy bods offer GOV SPY VICTIMS a FREE SPYWARE SNIFFER

Re: A simpler solution?

When I need some privacy, I boot up Tails.

The downside is that TOR was cracked ages ago. Might gin my own up, based upon Tails, but using i2p.

Slapnav: Looking for KINKY dark matter? Switch on the GPS!

Re: Isn't dark matter supposed to be mostly on the outer edge of the galaxy?

Naw, that's the evicted dark matter, as if failed to pay its galactic rent.

More seriously though, you're thinking of the dark matter halo around the galaxy. It's thought that dark matter may also be in clumps within the galaxy.

Of course, the entire lot is just a theory. It may be that the detected mass isn't dark matter in the form science thinks it is and that it's really Dalek invasion forces staging areas.

It's space WAR: Comet launches fireballs at space-invading EARTH

Re: Did you not get the memo?

I'll take mine in pieces, delivered to Mars.

Re: Dress code

Not the press, not feminists, the feminazis will be shrieking until the press arrives just to shut them up.

Re: The Leonid shower in full swing here

Well, it's cleared out where I am, but windy and below freezing.

Cold enough to say, screw that comet and its trail of rubbish.

Re: Information please

"The end of days finally arrives; the good are to be whisked off by angels whilst everyone else burns. So what do the most fervent religious types do? Commit a mortal sin."

Thereby removing the urine from the gene pool.

Attack reveals 81 percent of Tor users but admins call for calm

Re: Will not help you

"This is a classic big data problem, given a sufficient dataset you can nail pretty much any client if you can get a data sample near source and near entry."

Now, add in a nation state tossing tens of thousands of TOR nodes up and monitoring their traffic for analysis.

US Marshals commit DIRTBOX INTRUSION on Americans, says report

Re: earl grey remove battery

I'll be a bigger dick about it.

Want to prove I went to a tittie bar? So be it, you can also ask my wife, who was along with me. It keeps her unsuspecting and me honest.

Still want to play, Sonnie?

Re: Android has an answer

"My changing the IMEI had nothing to do with crime, just privacy."

I call bullshit.

Fuck with the IMEI, the cellular network rejects your attempts to join it, unless you forge it.

Of course, IMEI forgery was part and parcel of cellular telephone theft.

I am far from accusing you, only bringing an interesting and annoying legal fact to the forefront to remind all why IMEI is supposed to be not forged.

There are many, many legal reasons to do so.

Re: "What is done on US soil is completely legal"

"More seriously, how high up does a countries law cease to be? If you're in orbit you're outside of earthly jurisdictions, what about aircraft?"

Well, for a few ratified treaties, it's 90 miles for specialized things like space stations, GPS, etc.

For other ratified treaties, it's middle orbit, between geosynchronous orbit and low earth orbit.

For other ratified treaties, it's geosynchronous orbit.

For still other ratified treaties, it's "parking orbit", when a spacecraft is dying/dead.

Then, there is the *entire* space treaty that makes everything in space common to humanity, not a nation.

Meanwhile, you ignored the shit out of national airspace, which is also a ratified treaty.

An hence, is guided by legislated and case law, which means that what is in the air is in the air for all, you, me, the US government.

Do you want to deprive us all of air? ;)

More seriously, do look up US law, international treaties (they're far from difficult to find), international space "law" (there is no international law, only ratified treaties that have the force of law (which the US Constitution clearly states is so, second only to the Constitution itself (so, for the paranoid gun nut, an arms treaty cannot prohibit him his gun)). The entirety of it is in common English, with much of it being American English (as many US citizens can barely comprehend *real* English (I'm conversant, barely)).

"Companies are sensitive to that mood, and are responding - hence encryption by Google, MS etc."

Says one who is the village idiot on protocols of cellular nature.

the IMEI is key to communicating on an initial basis on a cellular network. That is an international standard.

Fuck with that and your phone will work only within the US. Foreign phones won't work in the US.

Real world meets the road.

Learn how shit works before you make an ass of yourself.

Re: PKI

Once upon a time, people actually comprehended networking that they used.

OK, if you plug into a wired network with your PC, is your MAC obfuscated? Nope.

Your mobile uses an IEMI. that can not be obfuscated.

Welcome to the real world.

Beyond that, things get *really* complicated, to to international agreements.

For those in the US, that means ratified treaties, which the Constitution proclaims are the law of the land, only second to the Constitution itself.

Re: BernardL

'".....it's logging location data for every phone within range....." And where in the article does it say it is logging every phone? Oh, it doesn't.'

Actually, it doesn't say what you think.

It's logged as interesting or not interesting.

Much of the time, not interesting goes into the bit bucket, however that is not always the case.

That said, I really don't have problems with it. As in, if I were caught up in the unintentional dragnet, I know quite well my activities would clear me.

The simple reality for many would be, they'd accidentally be given an examination that they were unaware of that would qualify them for a security clearance.

Re: Nothing to hide nothing to fear

"Until your phone imei is often coincidently found in these fishing expeditions & you'll suddenly find you're self under increased scrutiny from the security services for no good reason other than some bad guys happen to be doing business in your locality."

Here in the information world, of interest means a valid bit of data. Not of interest is bit bucket.

Now, if the bit bucket was examined and found to hold correlations of significance for a known felon who was dangerous, I'd most certainly and law enforcement would most certainly be interested.

That said, the fruit of the poisoned tree comes into play and a parallel investigation begins. One that uses none of the tainted information at all. If that plays true, it's rather likely that further criminal matters are present and one requires a court of law to examine the facts.

That *is* the case law and text of the US Constitution.

Now, as one who actually reviewed his own personal morale call home text file, dutifully recorded by an unnamed agency, after a certain soldier tried to kill his peers for religious reasons, I can say, I don't have that great a deal of problem with that. That isn't blind faith, that is due to the checks and balances in the US government.

They may fuck up on occasion, but usually they do work.

Re: Pity...

"If they had a warrant they could get the info from the phone company. So I'm guessing no, they are fishing."

In a way, yes. In the comparison of going to the fish market for your fish vs actually actively going after fish with a hook.

Warrants are served, the data is *not* in realtime. That is something I learned in the military.

If the guy is at the 711 yesterday at 11:23:43, whatinhell good is that today at 22:00:00?

Now, can it be abused? Absolutely. That is why we have a court system, a Congress and a POTUS. Each is checks and balances against the other two branches of government.

That all said, if the states get hold of this technology, the entire Constitution will become a regional clusterfuck that will take ages to untangle.

For those not from the US, our central government is relatively weak, with civil rights and federal rights defined in the Constitution. Anything not covered there devolves to the states, if not claimed by the state, devolves to the county, then to the town/city/township, then to the citizen.

Much isn't codified and is mixed US Constitution, some state Constitution and a *lot* of UK common law of 1776.

A rather bizarre thing occurs, as many states have not outlawed the judicial duel, such is legally possible in quite a few states. Don't see it happening, but it is technically possible.

Think of traveling in the US as a citizen as traveling in Europe with a Europass, but without having to present it at a border (travel papers are prohibited in the US Constitution).

For fun, do read our Constitution. It's an easy read, it's relatively short and it's plainspoken. Then, research history of the UK in 1776 and remember the history and some abominations that occurred in UK history over religion and personal protection from harm from another and assorted other items.

Or read Justice Scalia's opinion in Washington, D.C. vs Heller for the history.

Justice Stevens attempted to engage upon historical revisionism, only the immediate victor may revise history, not the progeny. ;)

Personally, I'd put quite a few firearms under the National Firearms Act (do look that up).

Well, it's nearing 05:00 local time, I need to get some sleep. I'm midshift.

Re: Pity...

"It's a pity that they have to slurp the entire area and then mark which ones are of interest."

What happens is, the phone pretends to be a tower. Hence, it reads *all* phone ID's in range. Hence, it slurps all and discards that which is not of interest.

Before you comment, do learn how the technology works. To do otherwise actually does disrupt service.

Re: Dirtboxes being used by dirtbags!!

"Well, my respect for the Marshal's Service just dropped several notches."

Well, mine actually went up. I rather dislike fugitives, especially armed ones. Especially armed ones that seek to force themselves into my home and force me to expend ammunition to halt such harmful activities.

So, to be blunt, I'm glad the Marshal's Service is saving me ammunition and door fixtures.

Blithering idiot!

Of course, I'm one that the government knows perfectly well where I am for 8 hours per day and is reasonably certain where I am the rest of the time. But then, I work in a government security operations center keeping their networks secure.

Earlier in my career, I literally had government agents follow me to ascertain who my associations were, beyond what was self-reported.

So, sod off, you paranoid delusional person, go seek professional mental health care guidance on finding balance between caution and paranoia.

For those outside of the US, please excuse my tirade against my countryman, however you should be made aware of one fact.

The United States of America has no real mental health care system. What previously existed was dismantled due to a handful of cases of abuse, with the promise of community based health care.

What that actually meant was mental patients were literally ejected from the closing mental hospitals, to become homeless. The community based mental heath care system was and remains underfunded to the point of being an embarrassment it it were in such a state in Somalia.

As for the ammunition bit, well, firearms *are* quite commonplace in the US. Most sane people only move about with them to and from the range or to hunt, when the game is in season. My firearms are in safes, with one special safe reserved in case of the not so vanishingly rare occurrence that someone breaks in and is armed. If they're unarmed and run away, oh well, I'll have to replace a window. If they're unarmed and remain, they'll get to meet the local police force, who will be advised that the suspect is peaceful.

I had quite enough of violence in the military and really don't want to see things military at home.

Free antivirus software, expires, stops updating and p0wns the world

Re: 0.5% of a few billion is still quite a number

"...don't use IE, don't browse dodgy sites,..."

Sorry, doesn't hold true any longer. Malware is being served up in advertisements on otherwise honorable sites. Such as CNN, BBC, PRC government website...*

*OK, that last one is a joke, the first two are not. The get the malware ads tossed when they find them, but the malware folks now are quite well funded. I'll not even go into adrotator.*, I've got quite the number of entries in my hosts files, due to annoyance at my firewall griping at me.

And yeah, I do surf dodgy sites, but I wear a Computer Condom and have a rather expensive hardware IPS as well. My home network is a full enterprise environment. To the point where I receive thank you cards from my local electric company.

"Machines with deactivated security measures as prone to infection as those without security measures? No shit, Sherlock."

Does that mean that a broken lock is as bad as an unlocked lock? ;)

Re: FTFY

"User who don’t update their operating system away from Microsoft, may as well install virii themselves, according to infection rate statistics published by world + dog."

I've had *nix admins proclaim that Windows is a virus. I disagreed and defined a virus for them and they were forced to agree.

A virus does something.

Re: What are the infection rates for desktop linux users?

Geeze, I forgot to address the original question.

The rate is present, low to mild. Most people who know how to operate their Linux boxes know enough to avoid letting something be run as root. That leaves malware at the user's permission level only (save for some sploits).

If it has an OX, it can be compromised. Most often via the stupidity of the user and we've all had our moments.

These days, I'm at the point that when my firewall gripes about malvertisement from a particular site, I quickly sudo vi /etc/hosts and redirect them to 127.0.0.1.*

*The hosts file isn't big enough yet to merit the usage of emacs. :P

Re: What are the infection rates for desktop linux users?

"Geeks, nerds and fanbois run Linux. Ordinary people run Windows or OSX."

You mean sub-ordinary people. Power users and network types use Linux, *BSD or OS X.

Oh well, at least this OS X machine comes with Apples built-in antivirus.*

Microsoft has their own free offering, it's not the best, but it beats a stick in the eye or a rootkit on the machine.**

*Yeah, there really is built-in antivirus on OS X, though it's indistinguishable from having no antivirus software, it's so efficient.

**OK, I've manually killed rootkits as too. Still, some can be annoying, having watchdog processes that have to be hunted down one by one, then simultaneously terminated.

You know, the fun ones. ;)

Annus HORRIBILIS for TLS! ALL the bigguns now officially pwned in 2014

Late yesterday evening

I saw a neat, new attack coming out of one of the vulnerability scanners, null string logon attempts.

How 1980's...

"Not enough people are employing full time (researcher) cryptographers. I know Google and Apple do, anyone know about MS?"

Yeah, but the NSA stole them all away.

Re: Supposed to be internal testing.

It never ceases to amaze me, I take a few days away from monitoring the security news and all hell breaks loose.

I was wondering about those odd attacks coming from our vulnerability scanners. Now, I have to update the IPS and assorted other sensors with these vulnerabilities.

Oh well, it sure beats reading pcaps all day.

GIANT sunspot returns, bigger and belchier than ever before

Re: @breakfast

"And all those asteroids will sprout baobabs?"

Sorry, but as one that was part of the advanced planning commission on life, the universe and everything, regrettably, the asteroids will sprout okra, in plentiful quantities far exceeding the total possible production capability of the Earth. The oversight and QA committees totally screwed the pooch on that one.

Re: AaaaUUGGH

"Fingers are crossed for a monster CME that hits us, here at Ledswinger Towers. "

I've long had the habit to track space weather activities, as my life did, quite literally, rely upon decent satellite communications for fire support and evacuation support.

Much later, I still track space weather, somewhat out of habit, somewhat to consider disconnecting certain expensive electronics if a CME is inbound and, erm, interesting.

Still, one ponders about the US, where substantial parts of the energy grid dates to the 1920's, with the majority being 1950's technology.*

*Note to self: Do pick up a proper generator for the house, along with an upgrade on fuel storage. I suspect 5000 gallons will be insufficient.

But then, I inherited a petrol tank under the property, courtesy of my deceased father, who had trivial access to such underground tanks and installed one during the US energy crisis. He subsequently added fuel to it, gradually, as petrol stations required repair and the remaining fuel was pumped out to be discarded.

There *is* a benefit for inheriting something from someone who lived through the Great Depression. Most of it is hoarding, some hoarding is beneficial today.

'Chinese hackers' pop US weather bureau, flatten forecast feeds

Re: Yeah but, this is a RE-hacking

The first lesson in network security is this; they *will* get in. Period, end of story.

One can only try to delay actions on objectives long enough to catch them before data is exfiltrated.

This is true for government networks, it's equally true for commercial networks.

What is critical is proper incident response, with a knowledgeable team.

Boffin imagines Wi-Fi-defined no-shoot zones for wireless weapons

Re: These can't be DoSed, right?

"Well if one side has guns, and the other has guns, drones, jets and tanks? I know which side i want to be on."

Not to mention AC130 gunships, MLRS, artillery and precision guided bombs...

Lindsay Lohan ignores El Reg's tender twitterly advances

Re: LiLo is in "Speed the Plow"?

Really, if that is the best you can do...

I quite enjoyed seeing a *lot* of her in The Canyons.

I'll give due that she did a good job in that production, especially considering the challenging environment.*

We'll see if she rises to stardom again or falls into substance abuse again.

*The Canyons had the male lead that is a porn star in the real world. Needless to say, she freaked out on a couple of scenes and had a director with an extremely firm hand. Said director explained it to her quite kindly, "If you screw *this* one up, you are done forever in this town."

He was speaking the rather unpleasant truth to the young woman.

Still, nice body, good acting. Not my type though, my type is largely in museums and labeled various dinosaurian names. ;)

HOT YOUNG STAR about to GIVE BIRTH, long range images show

Re: about to GIVE BIRTH

The star isn't about to give birth to anything.

The molecular cloud gave birth to a stellar system. *Whyinhell* does any astronomer think that the forces that caused collection of matter sufficient to "build" a star is insufficient to also generate eddies sufficient to build plants (and protostellar winds adding to the effects)?

Hell, enough matter collecting to form a protostar is more than sufficient to cause further eddies in the local gravitational environment and help the planet formation process along.

Re: This is what happens

"(For those who find this excessively feeble, a Conservative MP announced just a week or so ago that sex education led to teenage pregnancies. Ignoring the fact that the numbers are actually dropping)"

This gives me some consolation across the pond. It proves that the US does not hold a monopoly on moronic conservatives, we only hold the current largest market share.

By the way, Home Depot hackers also grabbed 53 million email addresses

I found one thing fascinating.

I never entered my e-mail address in the store register system. Ever.

I did have it entered a few years ago, in the order fulfillment system and in the online ordering system. I'm on their mailing list for new specials.

Yet, I received an e-mail from Home Depot telling me that my e-mail address was part of the lost data from their systems.

So, what does that tell me?

Far more than their POS systems were compromised.

Home Depot, you sell hammers? Let me buy one of them, for use on your leadership's fingers.

After I'm done, I'll return it. Something that would be a first for me with Home Depot (not that much of the products there are of high quality (don't let me go on about the cheap copper plumbing joints, suffice it to say they resemble aluminum foil more than what I could get at a proper plumbing supply house)).

Home Depot: Someone's WEAK-ASS password SECURITY led to breach

Re: Add more technology - solved

As was suggested, rather obliquely above, putting vendor crap onto their own DMZ is trivial.

Enforcing password complexity within one's enclave is best practices (as is putting foreign things not related to one's day to day business operations on their own DMZ(s)).

So, what does each instance of breach tell us? Not a damned one of those organizations passed a proper audit.

Hence, are legally culpable for any damages suffered by consumers injured by their lousy practices.

Back when I was a system and network administrator, I followed best practices. I did so not for some altruistic reason, I did it simply because I'm lazy and didn't want to have to work recovering from a breach.

Remote code execution flaws fixed in tnftp and wget

Re: wtf is a boilerplate response?

"Apple takes security very seriously"

Whilst relying upon *BSD to fix the flaw, then washing the fix through 37973 departments...

Re: Boilerplate reply

Meanwhile, at least in the US, that boilerplate response *opens* them to liability, as they've been informed and appear to have ignored the warning. Any client using their OS and experiencing damage now can claim harm caused by negligence on the part of crApple.*

*Full disclosure, I'm typing this on my favorite notebook, a MacBook Pro, which I am amazingly frustrated as to have had to compile and replace my ShellShock vulnerable computer *long* before crApple got around to it. I expect a *lot* better than that, lest I begin to think that crApple is taking lessons from Microsoft.

#*@&!!!!!!!!!

Virgin 'spaceship' pilot 'unlocked tailbooms' going through sound barrier

Re: When can we see the apologies?

"And perhaps we should ban all speculation until the NTSB publish their report - but that's against human nature."

I'd not ban it, only discourage speculations that don't conform with current news conference releases from the NTSB. I happened to watch video of said news conference, but seem to have missed the mention of the boom assembly moving after being unlocked.

When going trans-sonic, things get *really* ugly, as highly significant stresses are induced down the line of travel of the aircraft/spacecraft.

Things get uglier when the press/public gets involved, as mach 1 is relative in that arena, mach 1 for an operational craft is when *all* components are well and truly outside of the shockwave.

As the attitude assembly was at the trailing edge, it very may well be that the shockwave induced unintended movement, secondary to mechanical locks being disengaged.

The real question is *why* the locks were disengaged. Procedural flaw (not supported by current documents, as reported in press conference by the NTSB)? Operational friendliness design flaw (control is near a very similar appearing control that *is* on a checklist)? Informal test procedure practiced by a test pilot (unlikely, from personal experience with test pilots)? A case of intra-cranial flatulence on the part of the copilot (something quite well in the realm of possibility, on error, goto human)? Around 100000 things not considered from this highly sparse information?

Based upon what is *known*, which is an astonishing amount of information parsed by the investigators due to the craft being highly experimental, for all that we know, based upon this sparse information, it very well could have been a Decepticon moving the copilot's arm and hand.

The latter being the most, erm, improbable of events, as Transformers are either an electronic device or a fictitious character from a rather well earning toy line and entertainment franchise.

DR LIPS warns: DON'T KISS that NEWT - it's got FLESH-EATING PLAGUE

Re: More details needed

I can't think of any pathogen that can be easily passed from an amphibian to a human.

History has repeatedly shown us though, when a novel pathogen is introduced into a naive ecosystem, mass extinction will occur.

Locally, I watched corvidae disappear, dying off from West Nile infection. It took around 20 years before survivors could manage to survive that virus and proliferate.

Ex-Soviet engines fingered after Antares ROCKET launch BLAST

What is a rocket, exactly?

Take a great big bloody bomb.

Make it explode in one direction, at a slower than immediate rate, make it continue to do so until one is at one's destination point or needs to replace that one direction bomb.

As a practical example, I know of one intermediate range tactical missile that uses thermate as its propellent, with some modifying binders mixed in.

A second example would be all manned NASA rockets, which use hydrogen and oxygen.

Now, take that bomb, assemble it with loads of moving parts and electrical circuits, well, it gets complicated.

Rocket science isn't as much science as it's partially an art.

An example from early and even current rocketry, liquid fueled engines can suffer from pogo oscillation, due to structural components moving due to acceleration. That results in slowing fuel/oxidizer rates, then normal rates. That has destroyed quite a few rockets.

Now, who wants to design a rocket to personally fly up into space?

Not I!

Naked and afraid: that's how Telstra's Wi-Fi security makes you feel

Honestly

If I'm using a public access point, I really don't care about sniffing seeing what I'm looking at. I don't Conduct sensitive transactions over an open wireless network.

If I were to read my e-mail, it'd either be over SSL or IMAP, with TLS carrying the encryption.

My company e-mail is via a VPN connection, so again, not a problem.