Posts by Wzrd1 2267 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Dec 2012
"I'm not sure what value you put in Wikipedia, but it has a nice summary of the threat and past events, plus a crunchy bibliography on the topic."
My daughters, when in college, had objected that Wikipedia was prohibited for research.
I calmly remarked that one may not use the *article*, but the bibliography and citations are most certainly usually acceptable. :)
"A supernova would have to be within 40 Ly to be serious cause for concern. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova . At 26 Ly it's estimated that half of our ozone layer would be destroyed. Closer than that, and inverse squares is a real bummer."
Ah, but a singularity *or* neutron star with its pole pointed at us could still give severe star burn to everyone on the planet. GRB's suck for around 600 ly or so.
Hmmm, which do you think we'll get to see first? Sag A* "eating" or Betelgeuse popping its cork?
The worst nonsense of the story, "(a trick we may need in a few billion years)".
To require that, we'd need to add around four times the sun's current mass (off the cuff estimate), to account for losses during the red giant phase and still retain 2.5 solar masses.
Then, a bit of magic to make the numbers still work...
Sol can *never* go supernova, save if another star rams into it and that star has enough mass. And well, we'd have worse problems than trying to outrun a supernova. You know, like ejection from the star system. Or ramming into either star as our orbit is turned into rubbish.
"This suspiciously sounds like someone is not totally in the clear about the difference between the solar wind (not being used) and light pressure (being used)."
Or perhaps, they're considering wave-particle duality in this particular case?
Nah, they probably got it bollocks on.
But, I did ponder the solar wind, the pondered the amount extra from the Carrington event, then figured that anyone observing it directly, under a solar sail, wouldn't be experiencing it for very long.
A few additional ergs of pressure would be worth fatal irradiation, yes? ;)
Essentially, a kludge solution of using the shield of the spacecraft as a solar sail/stabilizer.
Do which I say, "Fucking cool! Great job, NASA!!!"
A kludge that works is simply an inelegant solution. A kludge that works within 5% of original, showroom floor precision is Fucking cool.
I say, give them a lot more of my tax dollars!
From a legal standpoint, it's even more complicated than that.
First, the ISP's have safe harbor law that protects them from such nonsensical and technologically impossible demands.
Second, opening them up to liability for traffic that they're paid to provide would also open up states to criminal liability for any and all crimes that the criminal used a toll road to get to or from the scene of a crime.
"Alternatively, some American TLA might be planning to'seize' -i.e. 'hack' the servers, even if they're located in other countries.
Or some nutty American judge could be planning another 'Finn job' and authorize one of those TLAs to pwn the servers located in foreign countries, without bothering with request letters and all that legal red tape. Not the first time it happens."
And those nefarious folks announced it to the TOR folks in advance, huh?
I know that there were a lot of words in the article, but if you read all of them, you'd know that the servers are in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the US.
Now, let's look at who dislikes TOR and who supports it.
The NSA wasn't to fond of it, but changed their tune a while ago. The FBI intensely dislikes it. The State Department fully supports TOR.
Now, the US has a hierarchical government, with the State department being superior to every other agency and the military. Its order is POTUS, VP, Secretary of State.
Indeed, that is the line of succession if one ignores Speaker of the House and President pro tempore of the Senate (Secretary of State is after those), then Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, then Attorney General (the list goes on from there).
"(i believe we called it semolina pudding back home, but this stuff is worse)"
Nope. Totally different beast. Semolina pudding is made with semolina, which is sourced from wheat middlings of durum wheat (leavings from wheat processing).
Grits are properly called hominy grits. Hominy is a food which consists of dried maize kernels which have been treated with an alkali in a process called nixtamalization.
It isn't as bad as it sounds, it dissolves hemicellulose that glues cell walls together in the maize and releases nutrients.
A cook product with it is tortillas and tortilla chips. The basic process dates back to 1500-1200 BC.
"Whereas bacon made from thin slices of pork bellies has a wonderfully appealing flavor, providing the essence of meatiness without MSG."
Bleh, I pick the packs with the most fat in them. Give me plenty of bacon grease to cook with and nice, crispy fat to piss my doctor off over (not that it alters my already astronomical cholesterol numbers).
"British food. Around here venison, pheasant, free range pig, beef, chicken, eggs,organic vegetables, soft fruit. Milk from Guernsey cows. Real Cheddar and a variety of even more local cheeses."
Venison, pheasant (always wanted to try it, might have to get a shotgun and hunt some when pheasant season comes around), veggies and soft fruit and real cheeses...
Damn, you've made me hungry. They're not supposed to feed me after midnight.
"Sales figures do not lie; you keep buying the stuff and we keep making it for you!"
Hey, shoot some across the pond. I'll try anything twice. :)
When I was working on the CENTCOM base in Qatar, the Danish cartoon fiasco went on. It was hilarious, every store disposed of tons of Danish butter.
And replace the lot of it the following week (I checked the expiration date and know it wasn't what was disposed of).
Did matter to me, I had two boxes of it in my fridge at the villa.
"Fact 1: it's the taste, it's awful, and usually covered in maple syrup"
Well, there is a maple syrup flavored bacon. I've accidentally bought some before, made a god awful mess of my cast iron skillet seasoning.
My wife and I are partial to uncured bacon as well, despite the premium pricing of the stuff.
"Fact 2: They also like to put cinnimon with everything, and I mean EVERYTHING"
I've been known to add cinnamon to french toast egg/vanilla/yoghurt mixture. That's about it, save for dessert.
"Fact 3: In America, the short order cooks don't usually take it as an affront to their years of training if you tell them how you'd like your bacon cooked and what you would and would not like sprinkled on it."
I could make some comments on short order cooks, but I'll refrain from doing so. But, I'm a former chef. Other than that, what you say is quite accurate (both for the US short order cook and for the UK lack of personalization).
"As a US Citizen, I will point out that maple syrup on bacon is purely a personal decision."
Agreed. I hate anything contaminating my bacon. We also have uncured bacon, for a fair amount more money.
As for breakfast foods, the only thing I add a trace of cinnamon to is french toast, which I also add liquid yoghurt to the egg and vanilla mixture. I get rave reviews for that concoction.
As for Brits not liking our bacon, all I can say is, they're the same folks who enjoy blood pudding.
Though, I'll modify that with, I do enjoy a good Yorkshire pudding.
"In the developed world, no, but if you came from Lancashire and didn't know any better then I think that's an acceptable excuse. After all, we shouldn't criticize those less fortunate than ourselves."
I dunno about that, I've cooked up tripe in pasta sauce more than a few times, for both myself and my father.
But then, I'm Sicilian-American, so I've inherited some interesting food tastes.
Someday, I'll even get around to trying out haggis.
"Meanwhile, the rest of the world will be blaming whoever left all of this stuff on poorly-secured internet-facing servers."
I've watched someone pop into a DMZ server, then ride the firewall pinholes in to ravage and plunder. Fortunately, the individual was rapidly noticed and the doors slammed in their face.
Regrettably, they did have time to create new doors that had to be chased down.
We'll suffice it to say, those who left the server vulnerable were asked to seek employment elsewhere.
Now, we know where they got new jobs, Sony.
"On a side note, if I am running a publishing house and publish lies intently that the stolen data suggests that all the suits of the company are gays (not implying bad), will they still sue me?"
Well, you'd be better served giving them all small penises and using pseudonyms that are readily transparent.
It's a defense rule in many courts called the small penis rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule
Both true believers and also foreign players in information warfare.
I've had teams actually track them through darknet.
No, details will not be forthcoming, just as details were not and still not forthcoming on how TOR was cracked when I mentioned it, long ago.
I *do* have an NDA.
So, to be honest, after studying tactics, techniques and practices, I'm really not sure where this village idiot is coming from. Could well be a true village idiot, could as well be a paid troll.
At the end of the day, I really don't give a shit.
My rule has always been, "Ignore assholes". But, I do consider potential impact and speak now, barely, hobbled by a few NDA's.
Two of which have criminal harm visited upon the breacher.
First lesson in this world we're suffering through. There is cyber warfare. There are multiple components, defense, intelligence gathering and operational operations. On the net, operational means either penetration of networks of information warfare. In the latter, we see a *possible* candidate.
But, to be blunt, the idiot isn't really worth my time to look at possible past entries.
My previous physics and chemistry based arguments are above the idiot's nonsense.
"P.S. you can have your book back as you might be able to trade it for a clue."
First lesson, science has a clue. Mars had a robust atmosphere in the past, back when it still held a magnetic field to deflect solar wind erosion of that atmosphere. Indeed, Earth loses hydrogen from water each and every day, courtesy of remnants of that solar wind reaching us past our magnetic bubble.
You further fail by considering the day/night conditions on *present Mars* and ignore the past, when an atmosphere would retain heat.
I'll give you the Everest temperature and conditions, conditions halfway up are... Challenging on a physiological level, rising higher risks significant medical hazards of a lethal variety.
BTW, it's rather well evidenced that Earth had a substantially "heavier" atmosphere, which eventually had mixed reductions of rock and soil. First, there was the oxidation era, when photosynthesis caused free oxygen to flow in increasing amounts. A *lot* got trapped in various rocks at that time, reducing gases in the atmosphere. Add in the losses I mentioned earlier, you get the past and present. Weathering releases oxygen and nitrogen, soil upturn for farming releases more nitrogen. Fertilizing a field increases nitrogen. Still, not a biggie, that era is recent, science has yet to notice a global change and is unlikely to do so in my lifetime.
"Then again, the temperature of Mars isn't really that high on my give a shite list."
OK, Mars is really cold. Frostbite to shivering cold, assuming standard atmospheric pressure, which it is not, the atmospheric pressure on Mars is low enough to kill you quickly. But, it's high enough that minor assistive methods would be required to ensure human survival, compared to deep space, interplanetary space or on the moon.
Titan is cold, as in colder than a witches tit, cold enough to give the frostbite on the witches tit frostbite, while the witch froze to death quickly.
A comparison for Titan is, well, Pluto. A bit further out, oxygen freezes and falls as snow, if there was an atmosphere on Pluto to speak of. More importantly, stick Titan out near Pluto's orbit, hell, follow Pluto past the L4 L5 points, watch the moon freeze hard quickly. Tidal forces warm that moon above freezing. Hell, put it away from the planet's orbit (see Lagrange points), the moon would freeze solid there as well. Tidal forces add heat to that body, but you'd freeze solid quickly there.
Well, I can think of a few other things that could have caused it, other than methane.
Hydroxic acid, dihydrogen monoxide, hydrogen hydroxide, μ-Oxido dihydrogen.
Now, it we were speaking of Mercury, I could think of bismuth alloying as the sun began heating. But, that's a cat of a different species, let alone color (colour for a minority of the world, if I recall native English speaker number correctly). ;)
For the few who don't get my first paragraph, they're all a short list of names for water. When I was young, water was also referred to as "the universal solvent". Something of an interesting notion at that time.
"Liquid water would not only require a higher temperature but also a higher atmospheric pressure."
It's generally theorized that Mars had a rather dense atmosphere, which was lost when the core froze and Mars lost its magnetic field.
As for methane, not a chance. One would need a denser atmosphere *and* it to be a lot colder. Methane is the primary ingredient of natural gas, it doesn't freeze or turn to liquid under the North Sea, it doesn't liquify on Antarctica, it'd still be a gas on Mars, even if Mars had Earth's atmosphere.
There's evidence that Earth had a much denser atmosphere, but lost a fair amount to space and a fair amount to weathering of rock. Weather, in turn, releases some of the trapped gases into the atmosphere and our magnetic field keeps losses to a minimum, as it keeps the solar wind away from our atmosphere (OK, don't jump on that one, folks, simplifying it down, the solar wind is lessened, but largely deflects to two regions on Earth, following magnetic field lines (and I know, that's still simplified)).
Now, when we get into planet sized dynamo action (multiple, actually) or solar ones, things get *really* tangled. Literally. The field lines average for a total north and south, but it's due to a larger number being tangled in a certain configuration. That breaks down and a reversal can occur.
Simulations of the Earth's magnetic fields that show the larger field lines look like a ball of string that threw up on itself, then tried to swallow itself partially. While the laws involved are well understood, the interactions are mathematically poorly understood for the entire grand data set.
'Astronauts are obsolete technology.'
Not really, we still occasionally need someone to turn a wrench.
Ideally, we would need to send a nice chunk of a university, with full labs, to Mars. Teams could range about and collect specimens from all over the planet (along with the robots that do a reasonable job of it).
But, ideally, we'd have reliable supply trains to and from Earth, launch costs would be near zero and equipment would be intrinsically safe.
The reality of it is, we have none of that ideal, only what we currently have at our level of technology. With our current technology, we'd likely lose those astronauts to radiation, illness or accident.
It shouldn't take that long to compile PE.
It's more likely that they deployed once infiltration, lateral spread and enumeration was complete.
What's astonishing is that exfil was in the hundreds of GB and no alarms were generated/noticed.
At this point, I wonder if the total loss was in the TB.
"Hmm, we've logged that you've been trying to circumvent the blocks. You do realise they're for your own protection? We can only assume you've been trying to look at kiddie porn. A white van will be along shortly."
Heh, when I was in a country that did *heavy* filtering (think Persian Gulf), I leased a virtual server, slapped a VPN on it and washed the VPN exit through squid.
I then happily and safely surfed sites that wouldn't get me a white van, they'd get me a black helicopter. :)
The national telecom then tried to proclaim VPN's were illegal (without any codified law to back that up), which resulted in three major international banks threaten to close their offices immediately, as they would not transmit financials in the clear.
The telecom then STFU.
As near as I can tell, this is in the hundreds of GB's, I'd not be surprised to see it in the TB range.
But, it all depends on where you put an IDS/IPS. Compromise a DMZ box, then use it as a hop point inward, hang your exfil point from a media server and detection would be problematic.
C&C traffic is trivial to miss until you learn what IP the C&C lives on, having any sensors on the internal network is mixed in industry.
Case in point, my Fortune 200 company is a cloud services, data services and information security services company. Our network has taps all over the place to monitor for suspect traffic and pull pcaps for forensic investigation if there is a breach. Despite terabytes of storage being incessantly filled, we still find the odd gap that we're blind to. It's very much a game of whack a mole in that department, due to the complexity of the various business units and their networks, as well as client interconnection points.
Well, my company, a Fortune 200 company, uses antivirus on our *nix servers.
As for Youtube, you do realize that watering holes are not only there, right?
I've received notices for regional government sites serving up drive-by malware and even some BBC IP's as well.
Add in malvertisement and you have quite the suite of threats out there.
BTW, the treat that caused Cyber Command to be pushed to the forefront for bringing into operation was Agent.btz, which was PRC malware spread by USB drives via autorun. The idiot contractors for the DoD didn't follow best practices or even the DoD mandated baseline.
I know, as I was there, running information assurance for the only installation that remained uninfected, for both incidents (they cleaned it up, then re-infected again a month later).
The first incident cost one billion dollars to clean up, as they literally cleaned out the entire DoD of system administrators to help clean up the infection. The second incident cost still remains classified.
Wouldn't want to get a large DoD contractor in hot water, they might not hire you when you retire from the military!
First, why would AI want to dispose of its creators, when the result would be unpredictable and generally illogical in nature?
Second, one can design in preferences towards humanity in any significant AI and a "subconscious" suggestion that future designs should so so as well.
I strongly suspect that Ian Banks had the right of it, assuming a non-mililtarized version.
"Calculate the size of meteorites that can survive passing through earths atmosphere "
OK, around dust particle size. The "sand" washed off of your roof tomorrow (assuming it doesn't rain tonight) dust.
*That* is largely meteor dust that arrived and wasn't able to be incinerated due to size and resistance to velocity decreasing it to be able to survive.
"Then, ignoring the 10 Billion light year wide elephant in the room of 'how did DNA get started somewhere else at least 4 Billion years ago' you might just realise that any panspermia would, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale have travelled the universe only to be eaten by a small dog."
Meanwhile, you failed to consider the harm inflicted on a single light year travel outside of our heliopause (or any other star that isn't inside of our current solar system).
Which would result in a deader than George I existence, screw theory, physics reigns supreme. As does interstellar radiation, which is abominable.
They are indeed hardly little beasts, however, subject them to hard gamma radiation, then intense solar radiation (not only UV, but all of the various other species of radiation), then consider interstellar radiation that we're "exempt" from, courtesy of the solar magnetic field.
Erm, I suggest it's not worthy of consideration, but highly worthy of experimentation, to include sending a sample beyond heliopause and back.
"I think that the theory doesn't require a lot of DNA to actually make it to earth.... Just a little would be enough to 'infect' the planet eventually."
Let us all know how that DNA managed to shit out an operational cell to operate within or even manage to get into an operational cell that lacked DNA to do so in.
Transpermia requires, by nature, intact cells arriving, well, intact.
*That* is what needs to be tested. Or a DNA virus, or an RNA virus that can shit out an operational cell (or something other than magic).
So, the *proper* experiment would be to introduce an object heavily laden with extermophiles and entering the atmosphere of the Earth and landing with said extremophiles alive and well.
Rapid recovery would be essential and proper genetic marking would also be key.
A plasmid could survive a lot and never manage to do anything, as it lacks the cell it was to be sexually transmitted to.
Might as well wanked off onto the capsule surface and say I'd result from any sperm arriving intact(ish) to Earth. Just based upon DNA, ignoring the dead cells that contained it.
"Protein sequences on the other hand are of very little usefulness because we have no clue how exactly are they folded and because most sequencing methods fail to pick up how are they glycosilated. That is an enormous can of worms both in the IT sense (folding software) and in the biochemical sense (how to replicate them with all sugary strings attached)."
I fundamentally disagree on one ground. Currently, we don't know *what* proteins are chemically (well, save for a sparse few). So, looking at folding calculation is looking at a dictionary that was randomized completely, to the letter level and trying to reverse the randomization *and* not knowing the language it was in.
Here, we'll get the "formula" (not quite), but not the structure (quite), which would shorten folding calculations profoundly. Learning how the damned things are folded in the first place is, of course, the platinum ring to pluck from the horses nose.
But, you can't figure the thing out without knowing what its components are beyond carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, the odd nitrogen and occasional other element. Every animal, insect and plant is, essentially hydrocarbons, but we're not bloody oil!
Figuring out the protein chemical structure is a first step, learning how the damnable things fold is the quantum leap forward.
Taking step two before step one *always* results in a trip down.
"I don't think we have deciphered anything yet. All that was done was separating the whole cipher message into individual codegroups. From there to clear text is still a long way..."
Fair enough, but your example is flawed. While I am far from being a code monkey, I've disassembled a handful of malware programs and ascertained their purpose, exfiltration methods and beaconing abilities. Only one was written in assembly and I'm not great with assembly.
CERT analysis and third party analysis confirmed my findings and only once found an additional function I missed that was not critical, but mildly interesting.
Now, for DNA, a *lot* of DNA codes for proteins. Some sub-codes code for assembling proteins together into larger proteins.
I'll not even begin to go into mitochondrial DNA coding and function, it only adds to complexity.
My only real concern is, what is the sample size in different humans?
Coding one isn't highly valuable, as there are many, many mutations amongst the various ethnicities alone. Adding sub-groupings that are known adds a thousand or more additional complexities that can be confounders when seeking new drugs that don't work amazingly well for one group and kill another.
That said, finding the stack pointer would win the game, as the remainder of your complaints are really based upon that origin (largely and overwhelmingly).
"I care not what role mosquitoes serve. We will help the planet adapt to their absence. Like IP lawyers, they should be made extinct."
Very well, please explain to several species why they are ordained by our idiocy to extinction. Then, explain to those who predate upon them for survival.
You can also explain how new products will be brought to market without profit, as copyright and patents would go extinct, in a scarcity economy.
The very first part of examining a problem is examining what the problem is and next, what mitigation will do in terms of good and harm. If the mitigation creates significant "ripples", it is intensely scrutinized and either abandoned as unpredictable or guarded considered further.
A prime example is to consider Microsoft Windows as a mosquito (or Martin bird, if you prefer), exterminate it and the overwhelming majority of malware in the world would disappear.
Regrettably, the overwhelming number of computers in the world would also cease to operate. Costs would abound in training staff on using permitted operating systems, support costs would crush entire economies.
Yes, that is the reality of it, like it or not.
Personally, I'm OS agnostic, using a half dozen quite happily for various purposes.
But, in a complex environment like a planet, making a significant change could eliminate dozens of species that may very well include the species causing the significant change.
Much like making a significant change in DNA coding for a protein. The result may work out brilliantly, but most of the time, indeed, the overwhelming number of times, it is not rewarded with survival.
"I get the preservation of most species, but - like the mosquito - I feel this one should be erased. We'll sort out the consequences later."
We at Special Circumstances learned long ago, sorting out the consequences later really, really, *really* sucks worse than the original problem did.
See the sorting out of the consequences of Operation Ajax by the CIA, as a favour for the UK petrol industry for one shining example.
I seem to recall the penetrating harpoon notion being tried and it was an abysmal failure.
Meanwhile, a kinetic penetrator did work on an asteroid once and did quite a bang up job of it.
Pun intended.
The only difference between missions would be going down and collecting chunks that fell back, rather than being vaporized.
I'm dubious of the utility of any explosive, as over half of the explosive force would be outward, rather than toward rock, save if it's accelerated enough to penetrate before detonation.
I'd lean more toward a kinetic penetrator, which is well proven technology, both on and off of Earth.
My wife is an artist (fine art) and rather intensely dislikes abstract and "modern art". I tend to agree with her, it's not my cup of tea as well. To each his own, said the lady as she kissed her cow.
Our conversation for this satellite went as follows, a brief description of the project and goals, then a brief Q&A session, placed below.
So, as I said, this is essentially an art project in spaaaaace.
Yes.
So, would you want that on your coffee table?
No.
Just as well that they're throwing it off of the planet, huh?
(Smiled, chuckled and agreed.)
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