Information Security & Occasional Forays Into Adjacent Realms
What kind of idiot would do this damage to the data collection of meteorological data, just to make a buck? Ajit Varadaraj Pai, that's who... The first (that I can recall) Federal Communications Commission Chairman that's for sale to the highest bidder.
via Anna Gorman writing at The Atlantic (along with Kaiser Health News) are sounding the klaxxon horns in warning of an astonishing fact in the United States: The influx of infectious diseases in the homeless populations of several states. This my friends, is a true and deadly emergency.
And then, there's this...
via Doug Cameron, reporting for The Wall Street Journal, comes a well-crafted artificial intelligence screed(paywall) that just might have a truly positive impact. Targeting wildfires in Califormia, the DoD will swing it's massive research and development apparatus targeting the devastation left by these fires. Now, if the Department can just develop software looking for incompetent utility companies that are the cause of fires like the 'Campfire'(paywall) wildfire (the deadliest fire in the State of Californias' history)...
Image Credit: TeleGeography
A deeply (no pun intended) problematic physical security & connectivity planning scenario - specifically the lifespan of in-situ buried internetwork cabling (on, or near land) coupled with a paucity of outcome planning (in the Anthropocene Epoch...) is detailed by highly respected researcher - Paul Barford, Ph.D., a UW-Madison Professor of Computer Science resident at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Along with Carol Barford, Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison UW-Madison Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment and Ramakrishnan Durairajan, Assistant Professor, CIS at the University of Oregon) have produced a study detailing failure risks (essentially a call to action, as the buried cable timeline has shriveled from a one hundred year life-span to somewhere less-than-fifty years) of buried internetworked cabling. Superb work. And, here's Rebecca Hersher's reporting for NPR on both the study, and the issues. Enjoy.
'"Most of the damage that's going to be done in the next 100 years will be done sooner than later," says Barford, an authority on the "physical internet" -- the buried fiber optic cables, data centers, traffic exchanges and termination points that are the nerve centers, arteries and hubs of the vast global information network. "That surprised us. The expectation was that we'd have 50 years to plan for it. We don't have 50 years."1 - Paul Barford, Ph.D. in an press-release published at EurekaAlert! (a service of AAAS).
Interesting exposé of the current state of truth (or prevarication) within weather prediction applications available to the masses on their phones, in their vehicles, offices, and at home.
In this case, the messenger - anecdotally - is not particularly important, as the science can speak for itself. Emperically, we have found similarities (but not exactitude) in the data discussed.
In a tour dé force piece - published in The Atlantic - Ed Yong illuminates the horrifying truth of human warfare's murderous effect on animals in the wild; in this case, a study of the nearly total decimation wildlife populations within protected areas of Africa during wartime. Something to read and ponder. A revelation, and today's Must Read.
Superbly crafted piece - by Emily Waltz, writing at the IEEE's Spectrum Magazine - on the alleged sonic weapon deployed and implemented in Cuba, targeting lawful United States of America Department of State diplomats (and other countries career diplomats, as well) while in-country. We are certain the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the United States Marine Corps' Marine Security Guard Embassy Security Group are actively working these incidents befalling ours and other nations diplomats. Today's Must Read.
Meanwhile - admist all the foo-fa-raw of last weeks' RSAC 2017 - came very good physical security new's of a fascinating kevlar and aluminum origami-based ballistic shield (developed by Engineers at Brigham Young University) that stops .44 calibre magnum slugs. Very good news for law enforcement, and other organizations (think schools, other civilian government organizations, military, businesses)
The design is able to protect multiple people at one time and folds down to a compact shape. Utilizing the Yosimura Origami Crease Pattern, it currently tips the scales at a paltry 55 lbs. (25 kg).
Simply Outstanding.
News, via Wired's Robert McMillan, of trouble in paradise. In this case, an error prone computational quantum platform the search leviathan Google Inc. (NasdqGS: GOOG) is running, down yonder in Mountain View...
"The crux of the problem is a phenomenon called bit-flipping. This happens when some kind of interference—cosmic rays, for example—causes the bits stored in memory to “switch state”—to jump from a 0 to a 1 or vice versa. On a PC or a server, error correction is relatively easy." - via Wired's Robert McMillan
'For the Patriots to blame a change in temperature for 15% lower-pressures, requires balls to be inflated with 125-degree air.' — Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 26, 2015
News' has reached the New World, of a fascinating endeavor - led by researchers at Moscow State University - to locate, gather, categorize and store all Deoxyribonucleic Acid on Earth. A new form of Russian Hegemony, or a commendable and valid scientific effort to preserve the genetic code of nearly all living things in a veritable snap-shot of life? You be the judge...
"I call the project ‘Noah’s Ark.’ It will involve the creation of a depository – a databank for the storing of every living thing on Earth, including not only living, but disappearing and extinct organisms. This is the challenge we have set for ourselves,” MSU rector Viktor Sadivnichy told journalists. " - via RT News
via Dr. Holger Sierks, a Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Scientist and Principal Investigator, leading the team working on the OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System) on-board the Philae, describing the effort taken by human researchers when analyzing images of the comet...
The ramifications to many endeavors, ranging from automated driving, to automated information and physical security functionality (identity management, authentication, access control, biometrics, image recognition, et cetera) are startling, when confronted with new visages, we have yet to develop algorithmic capabilities to manipulate the data, and bend it to our will. EOM
British Tabulating Machine Company - The Turing Bombe Rotors 1940 - 1945
Readers who have examined this weblog during the thirteen years plus of it's publication, know of my Interest in Matters Turing and Bletchley; Alan Turning & Bletchley Park, that is... With those Foci in mind, here is a fascinating serial scrutinizing the history of Bletchley Park, the nearly seventy-year-old locale of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland's Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) (now known as GCHQ). Today's MustRead.