Posts by John Smith

And let remember a few other things that did'nt go their way

42 days detention. Fail

Nationwide ID cards by now. No

ID cards for all airport workers. No

ID cards for 2 airports. They wish.

I'll raise a glass to the BMA, BCS, and NO2ID (who did an interesting briefing) for Stirling work.

Other posters are right. They'll (try) to stuff this in another Bill its completely irrelevant to (a tactic they seem to have learned from our merkin friends).

Her Wackiness has tasted blood with ID cards for foreign visitors

Contactpoint remains the nearly ideal nonces shopping system,

The scum bag civil servants who drafted this crap are still ready to spew this disease into the ear of the next incumbent.

Doing your job well is one thing. Stuffing draconian provisions with massive implications for data security into an unrelated bill is another.

Remeber the first rule of blacklist...

is no one talks about the black list

Mines the one with a copy of the Fight Club DVD in the pocket

1919-2009 plus ca change and AC@ various

That was when The Economic League was founded to "Protect" employers from infiltration by dangerous Bolshevik elements. Just a collection of right (and very right) thinking employers and a lot of file cards. persisted till the late 70s at least.

As it happens I met a man who was in the construction industry. Solid fellow, good academics not a union man by any stretch but suddenly work dried up. Finally got a job and got to know an HR person. Some service had him down as "Trouble maker."

A database of comments where anonymous people make potentially career damaging statements with no fear of it being challenged as the poor sap doesn't know it exists.

Bit like the ECRB one on teachers I think, now it admits to allegations, not just actual convictions.

A company blacklist for company use is not unreasonable on the "Make a fool out of me once shame on you" principle. A black listing *service* however is really a tool of the gutless, spineless kind of amateur British manager. You don't know, or can't be bothered to find out how to legitimately sack someone for being genuinely useless. Or you know your in the wrong and your afraid they'll talk. "Troublemaker" is always good, or should that have perhaps read "Would not suck my c&*k when I told him to," or perhaps "Rumbled my nice little 10 yr fraud as a manager but now I'm ready to move on and I want to make sure he can't turn up at my new company and drop me in it."

Employers. 18 yrs of Tory government gave you more rights of dismissal and sharply curbed the power of unions to protest.

Managers. I meant the ones who use this sort of s@*t. You share some of the characteristics of persistent obscene phone callers or underwear thieves. You are socially inadequate and cannot deal with confrontation (posting as AC says it all).

It is likely you do not actually manage in the real sense of the term and rely on your staff knowing their jobs well enough to avoid having to ask you to make *actual* decisions. They don't love you. The real question all your staff ask themselves is "How the f^&k did you get the job in the first place.

Proper managers know they sometimes have to fire people, some of whom do not like it but do deserve to be fired, and sometimes remaining staff will not like it. If you want to be universally loved 24/7 become an entertainer.

Either grow some and learn to do the job your currently grossly over paid for or give your staff a fighting chance and lumber some other hapless company with your in-expertise.

My personal opinion is some companies performance would rise quite substantially if (in the works of Mark Reid) some managers went on the missing list.

@LPF, AC@14:44

"This is only possible when you have complete aircontrol with no opposition. Somehow I dont think this would be happening if there was an opposing airforce to shoot them down."

Good thing Johnny Jihadist can't get his hands on any man portable SAMs is it not?

Oh wait...

Can I hack this?

Yes you can. (probably)

Irony alert! Irony alert!

"We have consistently reported concerns about SCOPE and are *appalled* that Phase II of the system – on which tens of millions of pounds have been spent – has now had to be scrapped"#

But stil keen as mustard to p*&s away some (unspecified) part of that £12bn+ of the G.I.M.P. on the Uberdatabase.

Mine is the one with the unusual head gear in the side pocket. And if her Wackiness has her way, yours will be to.

Side note on Thorium

I don't know about how far the Indian design went but quite a lot of work was done on using Molten salt in the 1950s primarily as the drive for the NPB (Nuclear Powered Bomber) program.

The idea was it had high power density -> light (for power level) & compact. There is no conventional fuel/moderator/coolant split. You tap some of the coolant/fuel and run through a heat exchanger.

As molten salts are pretty reactive and can at 5-600c can dissolve any of the likely fissile elements and little of the usual high precision mfg for moderator blocks, cooling channels, fuel elements it has been pitched as a kind of universal nuclear disposal-all unit (depending on the design) . Anything reasonable (Th, Pu, U) in, power out.

One of the US National Labs has done quite a bit of work (Oak Ridge?) has done lots of work on this. One of its nice features. The coolant/fuel is very hot but at low pressure and solidifies at room temp. As it runs hot but at low pressure (the very high power densitty of a molten salt) there is a low pressure containment building (a few bar max). The reactor leaks, salt hits air and freezes. In the popular PWR supercritical water (c 315c @ 2-300 bar IIRC) leaks you get a very hot very large cloud of radioactive steam. Down side of these design is heat transfer to a water cooling loop is a *really* bad idea. However people seem to moving toward He as a coolant direct driving a gas turbine.

If you are going to have a nuclear reactor this type has some attractions. Its dangerous like any other larger power generation system is but it eliminates a few failure modes.

I sorta like it.

We now restore you to your regularly scheduled comments.

The big 5 is somewhat misleading

For a start Canada developed the Candu reactors specifically to use natural Uranium. Pakistan and India have designa which (I think) they would sell (one of the India types uses Thorium), and I have seen descriptions of a drop in and go design from Brazil.

And please note the US report from 1962 and the Hans Blix comment earlier. *Any* Pu isotope mix is fissionable unless the its >80% Pu238. If the Prof's special seasoning can ensure Pu238 is the isotope which is most likely to be bred in the burn it has a chance of working.

But the ulitmate solution if you want proliferation resistant nuclear power is

A sub critical mass nuclear reactor that cannot have any fuel removed without shutting down. The nearest to this seems to be Russian work using a particle accelerator in a way I found oddly reminiscent of an RA Heinlein short story (c1940).

Is this solving a problem that does not exist?

So the existing nuclear powers supply the reactors and the pins and a re-processing service in their home country.

In an era when laser or photoetched bar codes can be put on almost anything (and read optically from what 3m+ it how exactly would a client make them disappear? You know how many you shipped out (and when) and how many you have received. If you have the reactor load schedule it looks like its pretty well locked down anyway. A fuel pin that got its head sawn off and emptied "Accidently" would look pretty suspious.

OTOH if your client picked up a job lot at "AQ's Discount Nuclear warehouse." (You name the pin design, quantity and filling. We name the price) all bets are off. Not very sporting.

This https://www.osti.gov/opennet/document/press/pc29.html

states what is and was defined as "Reactor grade" plutonium and what size bomb they made out of it. It worked pretty well.

While this http://www.nci.org/i/ib32897c.htm has a few words from Hans Blix

"On the basis of advice provided to it by its Member States and by the Standing Advisory Group on Safeguards Implementation (SAGSI), the Agency considers high burn-up 'reactor grade' plutonium and in general plutonium of any isotopic composition with the exception of plutonium containing more than 80 percent Pu-238 to be capable of use in a nuclear explosive device. There is no debate on this matter in the Agency's Department of Safeguards."

It is possible Professor Yigal Ronen already knows all this (He might be part of SAGSI)and his additive will side step this problem.

So given how the system (I think) works why is there a problem in the first place. And why can't the ringer pins circumvent any security?

What am I missing?

So let me get this straight.

You dosed the fuel with some of this stuff. Fuel goes into reactor and turns into stuff-which-is-reprocessable_but-not-usable-in-a-bomb.

There's nothing like cutting edge scientific journalism.

Masterful exposition.

@Kanhef AC@01:55

My knowledge of the case is limited to Register coverage. I re-read it, along with the brief. The story states Jones and 4 others are indicted, as in not convicted. Perhaps you are more up to date?

So 1 (of several) questions would be how much of the "probable cause" is due to the information collected from this. If they had probable cause already a warrant would avoid getting bogged down in this argument. If the tracking records are the bulk of the evidence have they just buried the judge in a paper blizzard("This man's records cover 3100+pages of movement over a month. He' clearly up to something!)

Or rather his car is. That is what is being tracked. And arrangements exist for getting a warrant(according to the brief) to cover fitting a "beeper". I would have guessed its nearest equivalent would be the telephone "Pen register" trace of dialled phone numbers and their duration. interesting info, establishes patterns but not actual proof and presumably available with a lower standard of 'cause.

@AC “It wouldn't have been difficult to get a court warrant for the tracking”

It certainly looks that way

The point is putting on a GPS tracker (not a bleeper) and not going for a warrant is a a near zero cost option for the FBI. Its *very* cheap. If they go to trial and their prosecutors can con-vince the jury that where his car is is virtually the same as where he is and that is where drugs were sold he's as good as convicted. Drinks all round. Job done.

So why bother with warranted surveillance and showing 'cause on the next case either?

Work up a decent conviction rate with this evidence and said prosecutor gets to write a memo explaining how they get such good results at so little cost to the taxpayer. Its not ruthlessly efficient it is merely efficient. The ruthlessness is simply a free by product.

Some L&O Con-gress person sees these bang up results and thinks we have mandatory GPS on mobile phones, why not put them on cars as well. Juries will understand its only an indication of where the felon is. But the authorities will need a PIN code to switch it on otherwise we'll swamp the mobile phone network, and reception is bad enough in some cities already.

Later L&O Con-gress person2 needs to make a name for themselves. This sending a PIN code to a server is *too* slow. Seconds count. Lets have all vehicles report all the time on a special network and if one is stolen or used in a crime we'll know instantly (or within 10 secs) where it is.

This technology is qualitatively different from the beepers of old. It enables *mass* dragnet surveillance. The background to the Jones case suggests officers who did not have to get a warrant, so they did not bother. That sounds pretty lazy. Ironic as they had to get the kit and presumably as its the FBI the drug supply they are talking about is fair sized. They should have expected him to hire a decent (expensive) lawyer.

Sorry to disappoint you but the whole dark suited Ivy League types (with a chain smoking henchman) around a darkened board room table plotting the snuffing out of any freedom of movement or association isn't my view of the world. Very sinister. Very dramatic. But complete BS IRL.

Just lazy cops who can't be bothered to cross t's and dot i's with a new toy, backed up by ambitious prosecutors and ending with some self serving politicians who want "justice" on the cheap.

Most of them aren't actually bad people and don't see their behaviour as wrong. No lobbyist bribes. No blackmail by shadowy groups with an agenda. Just people being people.

A basic knowledge of human nature and how it can interact with technology and economics should make anyone concerned at the possibilities.

If you don't have that then most of this has been rather boring to you. Otherwise perhaps you are powerful enough to ignore such concerns and we are all merely "little people" to you? How nice for you. Or perhaps you are deeply trusting and believe nothing bad can happen to you.

If the latter I hope your lucky.

let me keep it simple

"Police work is only easy in a Police state." Joseph Wambaugh. Ex LAPD patrol officer and author

Do you believe that a state which allows, enables and then encourages its officers to use effectively on-demand surveillance of anyone, at any time, without probable cause is going to make you safer?

Think carefully, especially about that "Probable cause" bit. Its part of one (US Dictionary) definition of "Liberty."

@Dave

"All you need to do is synthesize a decent signal set at a signal level high enough to swamp the real signals"

Couple of points.

For simple jamming a narrow band spot unit which took into account the satellites Doppler shifted transmission frequencies might suffice.

Jammers have been developed but part of the point of the spread spectrum modulation used is to broaden the actual bandwidth needing a broadband c1MHz for civilian signal to trash the data.

But if you want to actively mislead the tracker (how can fitting one of these not need a warrant?) you need to do signal simulation. That amounts to a repeating 12000 bit data block split into 300bit pages. Some parts are common to all satellites in the constellation, some differ. Some compensate for satellite motion and are re-calc'd on a regular basis. Modern GPS Rx use multi channel receivers so you'll need to take the data stream and run them through the relevant sats spread code before sending them up the antenna. Normal ASICs have 12-15 channels. Producing a GPS signal usable by experimental hardware is complex but doable. Pretending to be a GPS sat constellation (with convincing parameter changes) is rather tougher but the kicker is this.

GPS has an L1 and L2 signal. One is civilian, standard resolution and can be deliberately degraded. The other has 10x the bandwidth and much greater accuracy (<3m without outside help IIRC). The data is encrypted. The civilian channel transmits the keys as it can be acquired quickly. Civilian repeat cycle is 1ms. Military is c1 week. Military spread codes are secret as is encryption method. As the GPS on the Shuttle uses the military code it would seem likely (but not necessary) that the FBI is "suitably qualified" to use it as well.

The original GPS military encryption was designed in the 1970s, like DES. It would be effectively unbreakable with the PCs of the time and may (should) have been updated to a newer method. However given the longevity of military hardware perhaps it has not. If so its a lot more vulnerable.Z80 Vs Pentium 5 anyone?

Amateur GPS receivers have been done in various ways but no one seems to have talked about a military grade unit and most seemed to have been tested against the real sats. Some universities have simulators.

NB. This is all open literature stuff in the spirit of a level playing field. (EW&W in the early 90s for the SW GPS Rx using bit counting on a Transputer to track 12 in parallel for example). A spoofing simulator would certainly have a market in some circles. But there's a lot going on in one of those simulator boxes. Pulling it off would be a substantial achievement. GHz frequency RF has a lot of demand these days.

OTH the trackers back channel.....

Bill who.

Bill Rammell reiterated the government view that the greatest civil liberty of all was the right not to be blown up, killed or terrorised

Another suitor for Jacquie's affections? he has competition.

Background music "Our tune."

"We've had a letter froma young man I'll call Geoff. A few years ago Geoff got a high powered promotion to a new job in Westminster. It mean working for a new Supervisor, an older women I'll call Jacquie.

Geoff was a bit nervous at first as he heard that she was a slavering gibbering maniac who attacked anyone who did not agree with her.

To his surprise she quickly warmed to him. He suspected this might be partly due to his physique. He'd other some colleagues comment when they thought he was out of earshot that he was "Complete buff," or something equally complementary.

Time passed and they discovered they had so much in common. Gardening. The importance of collecting as much information as possible about anyone they had to keep in line and ABSOLUTE OBEDIANCE TO THE LEADER.

Sadly they went their different ways but have stayed in touch. But in memory of those happy times he asks for this special tune.

So for Geoff & Jackquie here's Laibach's cover of One Vision from Opus Dei.

Mines the one with the pockets full of sick bags.

@ Dervheid

My point exactly.

@Rotacyclic

You might just get out the DVD with John Hurt and Richard Burton. Animal farm was made as a feature cartoon in c1954.

You might like to re-think your reading policy. While nothing dates faster than the future books about how people interact tend to remain relevant. "The Mythical Man Month" (1975) and "Peopleware" (1983) are ancient in IT terms. If you work in IT you might find them more relavant than you expect.

@ Kain Preacher

Nazi Germany did. It was called the blitz in the UK and involved bombing the whole of large cities. I think Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbour was the only significant bombing raid on US soil (but I could be wrong).

The UK and US responded with large scale conscription and centrally planned production on a very large scale. The UK introduced ID cards in 1939 which stayed till 1953 when 1 man said he wasn't going to produce a document issued to fight a war that finished 8 years earlier.

However for authoritarian types a state of war is not ideal. That much obvious control makes people uncomfortable. They start asking why no progress has been made and if not why no one has tried to negotiate. One way or the other it has to end or be ended. But Orwell's point was that the aim of War is not to actually win. It enables the absolute power of the Party.

Much better (from their POV) is a state of fear. Large groups of people are afraid but statistically their actual chances of dying are near zero. The US State dept's analysis of non military deaths indicates the most effective weapon for killing Americans is something we call a "Roundabout."

Very little changes in the state of fear. Except your movements can be monitored at will. You have limited privacy which can be revoked at will and your right to protest will be surprisingly limited. Best of with a terrorist group with no political wing it is impossible to negotiate a settlement. An indefinite everlasting War on Terror.

If the main group causing this threat has legitimate (or apparently legitimate) grievances it will always get recruits, providing a low level background of deaths to justify the continuing special measures. A few barking mad policies (replace federal statue with Sharia law, dismantle the state of Israel) will ensure they are never talked to.

Fringe benefits accrue if you can concoct an excuse to invade some countries you don't like. this gets your (governments) hands on their assets, kills off a steady stream of aggressive members of the working class (the usual source of the PBI) and ensures a steady stream of orders to ammo suppliers and R&D outfits to counter an evolving threat. As a British officer in Northern Ireland said "There are no incompetant terrorists left. We killed them already."

I don't doubt that Al-Quaeda and Osama bin Laden are real. But the threat they pose has been very handy for enabling the passing of some highly repressive laws.

@Gavin Jamie @AC11:04

"First of it is pretty rare that someone pitches up unable to communicate (or without someone else who can). "

Yes that's what I suspected.

@AC 11:04

One staggering figure to keep in mind. The NHS is the 3rd largest institution in the *world,* after the Indian Railway and the Chinese Army. But I doubt its anywhere near as unified.

But having said that hello Mr NHS person again (or are you another one).

"reading the story it looks like the perpetrator was caught so theres your "audit trail" working"

Impossible to say given the available details. I'd have thought the NHS would have liked to publicise this as an example of exaclty this kind of eternal vigilance.

"Im sure your decision will bode you well when you are lying on a trolley unconcious in a hospital A&E dept"

I'm a bit slow so help me out. I'm unconcious with no ID on me and no one with me (the case your predecessor was fond of). How will you get my NHS number or other key to an NHS medical record off me? Or will you treat me the old fashioned way. Treat as usual but watch for allergic reaction with existing drugs.

Since you sound like you're accessing some kind of NHS stas system perhaps you could also give us the ball park figure of how many of patients need more than 10 seperate drugs? lets get some bounds on how big a *real* problem this might actually address.

I'll be waiting.

By the way I know drugs exist for delusions but are there any specifics for low self-esteem and paranoia?

The last party conference. Gordon Brown high on a positive vibe. Tony's gone. No one (not even Gordon it appears) suspects whats coming with the banks. Polls good. Never a bette time to go to the country and get the peoples mandate. Even I would have voted for him. so with all systems go he goes Lister on us.

"Sir. All sensors indicate this is a fully working time/space engine."

"So whats the catch"

"There is none. If we set the co-ordinates it will take us anywhere in time and space instantly"

"There's always a catch Kryt's. It never works like its supposed too."

Seriously how else to explain what actually happened? A complete bottlectomy. I think Gordo should be topping up on his 'scripts

We have no need to know this information. And the doctor had no need to ask. So how could he in the first place?

You can guess whats in my jacket pocket.

@AC 07:26

"If you want to opt out"

No, whoever you are. The correct question is if I want to opt *in*.

The fact it's phrased that way says a lot about the arrogance of the people who thought this one up. The solution chosen was to rely on natural apathy to avoid any questions. Rather less "informed consent" than informed contempt (from the NHS).

Your right that that system did catch this person. But what level are they? An A&E doctor should logically have more access than a GP who will normally only treat people on their practices list. Consultants (logically) would need individual files from multiple practice lists.

But is that the way it really works? 5 minutes thought sugests some sort of hierarchy.

But what of the benefits.

"The thing about a list of medication and alergies is that it is often required for a person who is unconcious or unresponsive"

I would expect people who regularly visit their local A&E to become a recognised patient. Unless they get in trouble away from home. Don't A&E staff look for ID? Contact details of Next of Kin, GP etc? Most people I've know with such alergies and needs (typically diabetics and antibiotic allergy) wear bracelets or pendants with this information inscribed.

"For people who regularly take fifteen or twenty medications, it is not just annoying but scary"

Call me a bit of anorak but I'd be carrying a laminated (waterproof) card with that many different meds, their dosages, schedules and contact details seperatley from my wallet, possibly around my next. Who needs that range of meds? Survivors of 90% 3rd degree burns (how did they get our of Intensive Care), multiple transplant recipients?

So this system could really benefit a)People who egularly end up unconcious in their local A&E but are unrecognised by staff (their face is beaten till its unrecognisible perhaps) and have no ID of any kind on them or b) A hard core group of multi-medicated people who travel round the country (individually) getting into situations where they end up unconcious with no ID and no one to answer questions about them.

So how much of that £12.7Bn did this system consume.

Let us make it clear. We stay out of their hospitals, they stay out of our medical records.

It just hit me. You don't by any chance work A&E at one of the Glasgow hospitals at the weekends, do you?

Otherwise what is Gordo (and Alex for that matter) taking these days.