Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • January 12, 2020 4:59 AM

@ Bob Paddock,

Is that Ham Radio or professionally related?

It could be both, I know in the UK it’s called “Amateur Radio” but it’s the same with “sports”. You are only “Amateur” because you don’t compeate for money. With radio it’s because you don’t use the traffic carrying capability as a commercial venture. It’s not because you do not do things in a proffessional manner.

You would be forgiven for thinking that it’s daft point to make, but unfortunately others of importance have drawn such a distinction. In the US the FCC have taken an even more stringent view point in the past. That is for years they refused to licence a module for a space craft because it had been designed and built by students at a military academy because they were in effect Federally “Paid employees” whilst doing the design…

It’s this sort of nonsense that means that the US AMSAT efforts have in effect fallen in a quagmire, whilst European and Middle East, Indian and other nations have moved ahead in the game.

But to answer your question I will avoid the issue by saying it’s neither, it’s option three “research” which covers all maner of things in what is an independent way.

An interesting thought for you, satellites have the same issues as bullets, golf balls and shuttle cocks do. The greater the surface area compared to mass the shorter the duration of their flight. But the greater the mass the more energy has to be put into the start of the flight.

Components in space depending on their orbit are subjected to various types of radiation across the whole EM band.

Without going into the details some “space hardend” components are ordinary production run components that have been stress tested then shielded. So a 25cent 555 timer you might use as a watchdog timer gets to be nearer 2000 dollars for a bit of stress testing and having two thin plates of tantalum put on either side of it. One reason that tantalum is used is that from the radiaton stopping potential it only needs to be half the thickness of lead, thus has less mass.

So the question arises as to is that reduction in mass for 8000 times the price worth it?

The answer when you consider things is “no” thus the question moves further to “shield individual components” or “shield PCBs”. Well the answer is “it depends” but when you consider the way the launch market for the likes of cubsats works you are given a physical size and a maximum mass per unit. So bearing in mind the flight life you are better off designing to get the maximum mass alowed. This makes “shielding the PCBs” the better option unless you realy are stuffing it in. You can also use other materials such as titanium which have other advantages (look up the JADE “jovian radiation vault” for other information).

However that still leaves another issue, which is “burning them in”. Hardend components undergo a much more serious set of tests, you can look up some of what needs to be done to take a chip from ordinary industrial ratings through to military ratings, well things need to go further for space hardening (and even though well known guess what ITAR and similar come a knocking…).

The trick howrver is developing tests that will quickly and as inexpensively rule components “in or out” of further consideration or what “extra considerations” need to be taken into acount for them.

For instance a microprocessor will behave in unintended ways if any of the bits in the register file get flipped. Whilst you can do somethings to reduce this at the chip design level the problem does not go away. So in effect they should all be rulled out but… So one way to compensate for this is a watchdog circuit that kicks the reset line if an event happens or fails to happen. But this will only happen if the watchdog circuit works, so you need to be able to build one that is effective. So you need the 555 timer and some discreet components, one of which would be a high value capacitor.

Sadly capacitors are a dielectric between two conductors, a dielectric when hit by ionizing radiation becomes a conductor, therefor you have to know how to deal with the effects of this and design around it safely. Insulators around components including all pasive components are effectively dialectrics. Thus if you are designing for operation in a very low presure ionised gas environment you need to consider voltage creep and arc etc.

You can look up “pay-walled” research papers or Internet articles where others have done some of the work for you such as,

https://www.ttiinc.com/content/ttiinc/en/resources/marketeye/categories/passives/me-slovick-20160809.html

But at the end of the day you have to “build and test” less you “build and cuss” when something you did not read up on lifts it’s head above the parapit.

Have a hunt around for why certain very exprnsive Swiss atomic clocks have failed prematurely in the “European GPS” Galileo satellites,

https://phys.org/news/2017-07-europe-galileo-satnav-problems-clocks.html

Clive Robinson • January 16, 2020 8:04 PM

@ vas pup,

My guess drug cartels may utilize underwater drones for smuggling as well.

I think they are either well ahead of you or certainly fast on that route,

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

I can not remember off of the top of my head who the author was or the name of the story, but over fourty years ago I was reading a “dog eared book” that was kind of “Hammond Innes” in nature. So it was probably written twenty odd years befor that so say early 1950’s

In essence the plot line was based around the idea of drug smugglers usink a WWII Mk VIII torpedo[1] launched from the side of a ship, the warhead replaced with a half ton or so of cocaine or some other drug.

The story gave a very good description othe Mk VIII and it’s internals and how you would extend the range. And I must admit it was these technical details that stuck in my head rather than the main plot[2].

[1] The British 21″ Mk VIII designed in 1925 carried over 800lb of Torpex and at 35knts (65km/h) had a rang of 15,000 yards (~14km) and was designed to enable destroyers to be able to attack cruisers and battle ships. It was still current on submarines during the Falklands war where it sank the old USS_Phoenix that had been sold to Argentina in 1951. Later versions like the Mk X had a considerably reduced range but higher speed and lighter warhead and were designed to be used against much less well armoured ships.

[2] Yes forever the geek even when they were called nurds 😮 My saving grace was I also played rugby, kind of like American football but without all the “get in your way” body armour. So nobody ever kicked sand in my face at the beach, not that they got the chance, as I was only on it long enough to get a boat, canoe or wind surffer across it 😉

Clive Robinson • January 16, 2020 8:45 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

Does this smell like portable Stingrays?

Not as described, it sounds like a digital forensics lab in a “port-a-loo”.

It basically sounds like an unwarranted extension to “stop and search” pushed through on the “think of the children” crap. It will almost certainly be used on “fishing expeditions” using the premise of “E’ looks guilty guv”.

As for the argument it won’t keep anything, that is a compleate load and the police spokesperson should know it. Your smart device files will all be downloaded to be checked in various ways, and then supposadly “deleted”. As you and I both know, once on a hard drive, especially a solid state drive, the files are not realy deleted, only the directory entries are changed… Worse with solid State drives the wear leveling algorithm means you can not even overwrite the file with an old style “Secure Erase” program…

Clive Robinson • January 18, 2020 2:18 AM

@ JG4, SpaceLifeForm,

The only thing crazier than a nuclear ramjet would be a nuclear spaceship.

I was aware of one idea to build a “heavy lift platform” like a parabolic mirror, to create a massive “pulse jet”. Put simply micro nukes would be dropped through the mirror and exploded at the focal point directing the energy downwards in a broad pulse along with the consequent radiation transport energy. As far as I am aware the basic idea was tested quite small scale with conventional explosives and found to be workable. The lift capability came out to be on the order of 2000-5000 tons over and above that of the mirror and engine “fuel” and “fuel injection” mechanism.

However it was about the time when the question of EMP realy got going and I guess such a system realy would have been a US wide “self-denial of service” device.

I must read up on project Orion, it sounds as though it is both “technically brilliant whilst mader than a bag of ferrets in mating season”.

Clive Robinson • January 19, 2020 11:48 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, MarkH,

I’m not talking about venturing of to “boldly go” no it’s much more “down to earth than that. You say,

There is no better rock.

Correction,

There WAS no better rock.

Very past tense.

And it is a very real security problem that in a not very great time realy could be an existential risk.

At the simplest we do know big rocks head our way at very high velocities every few thousand years or so. One supposadly helped wipe out most of the large creatures living on the earth which gave mammals a chance to be come dominant, we also have reason to belive there was another natural incident that nearly wiped mankind out, due to our lack of diversity. More importantly, we know it’s going to happen again not if but when, being somewhere else might be a good idea but where? When it’s global or regionaly existential…

But that aside we are doing ourselves no favours in the longevity stakes as a species, because we don’t think or don’t care to think about our cause that effects the next or more generations. In effect we throw the rubbish over our neighbours wall, or neighbours in this case being our descendants, who can not throw it back or stop us, only clean up the mess we’ve died away from.

The simple fact is we’ve dug out/up what is easy to get at and we need ever more resources that are increasingly more difficult to get at. Worse as our current first world societal structure has become undermind by our economic stupidity we have ineffect created a “drug addicts need” to destructively and recklessly consume that which is beyond doubt both bad for us and in excess of any need…

One symptom of this reckless need was the problem caused by the use of “Deep Water Horizon” which long befor the deep sea blowout was giving warning signs it was beyond the abilities of certain US oil companies (owned by certain well known politicians that brought us the Iraq war as well). The blowout when it came caused a very much on going ecological disaster from the Florida Panhandle to Tampa Bay and god alone knows where else.

Technical experts in the oil industry had advised against drilling that deep for good reason. Only part of which was that it was so technically risky and there were no known ways of dealing technically with unexpected issues. So it was well known in the idustry that there was no feasable disaster recovery plan if any one of thousands of things went wrong, just vague irrelevant platitudes that were ignored for ostensibly political reasons. That it all did go horribly wrong was thus no great suprise, especially if you consider it was because of the “bullishness” driven by ideology of certain parties with a long track record of things going wrong in that way.

Call it a “signpost on the road to disaster” or “a warning that should be heeded” we are running into increasingly major problems with the scarcity of resources, that some nations have already quite understandably decided to exploit for the best advantage they can (basic market economics at play).

Either we in the first world cut back on our lifestyles which is not likely to happen even with major conflict, or we have to find other ways to get the resources we need. It’s a fairly simple equation…

But what should we do as resources become scarce how do we decide?

For instance which is worse making more coal fired powerstations and burn up increasing quantities of fosil fuels with the known negative effects on us now. Or in the US alone build 500 nuclear power plants at a half billion dollars each and as a minimum have the spent fuel issues of type two reactors for a hundred thousand years? But just to add to the fun what happens when something goes wrong? The difference between the two types of power station is the “heat source”. So coal burning furnaces spewing poisons into the atmosphere continuously that stop burning fairly quickly, or type two nuclear reactors that are in no way fail safe that will should something go wrong spew radioative materials for upto twenty years or so, that will cause environmental issues for many many thousands of years after we are dead.

I’m sure 10million Australians who have had their life expectancy cut by upto twenty years due to the smoke inhalation from having an area the size of a European country go up in flames will want a say as will no doubt the very many who have suffered flooding in Africa.

Put simply as a species we are exceptionaly greedy, and we consume vasts amounts of resources, which are irreplacable much of which we recklessy waste. For instance something like 50% of electricity generated in the US is wasted in a number of ways or used grossly inefficiently, which amounts to the same thing.

And don’t make the mistake of thinking “green energy” will be a miracle solution, it won’t get even close with the way we currently behave.

In the US especially with the “base load” it is beyond the capacity that solar / wind / wave / biomass electrical generation can provide reliably or economically as needed even with other yet to be invented/created storage technologies[1].

What local “green” will do however is help cut distribution loss which along with other more efficient methods such as heat pumps will reduce losses and improve over all reliability. But getting real on those losses and inefficiences is very important.

Depending on who’s figures and where they are in the first world the “average” house uses between 0.5-9.5 kW hours of electricity a day although the upper figure drops when averaged for seasonal variation. In the US 6-8 kW hours is quite normal much of which is just to shift heat around grossly inefficiently. A few years ago we realised that there was a problem with “light bulbs” and their efficiency. There have been comments that changing from incandescent bulbs to more energy efficient lights in New York alone saved the cost of building a new power station and puting in the required infrastructur which in todays pricing has probably saved 1 Billion USD alone.

I could go on but the point is like it or not the worlds population is still growing, and many aspire towards European or US life styles. With the US apparently consuming ~50% of energy resources used domesticaly it should be clear that something has to change.

Either we need to get more resources in or we need to be not just more efficient but have much much lower life style expectations, that would be mid to low Second World currently[2][3]. Which would also kill our current economic processes so we would start sliding down to third world anyway…

So if we don’t get off of this rock to get more resources in the near future life is going to get a lot less pleasant at an increasing pace. At some point on the downwards slope we will cross a tipping point where getting resources from outside this rock and it’s bubble is not going to be feasable. Then the journy down that slope will despite how more efficient we can make things end up limiting mankind majorly, and if history is anything to go by that will be significantly hastened by increasing conflict.

What being more efficient in the use of our resources does is buy us a little more time. Science and technology are making rapid progress but there are limits on what it can do. As we know nothing will ever be 100% efficient even getting from 90 to 95% efficiency is a major effort and achievement in physical processes. However getting from 5% to 25% is usually easy often trivialy so just by slight changes in usage or behaviour and making a 2% improvment year on year is also often achievable. But as you get closer to 100% the changes can become less pleasant.

How less pleasant? Well think becoming vegitarian and with a very limited range of foods for one, not having private transport beyond a folding bicycle another, no flying away on holiday etc all those first world differences from second/third world existane being taken away from you.

[1] Energy storage is a thorny issue at the best of times, the storage of electricity in batteries is at best a sick joke as we don’t have the resources to build lead or lithium based batteries to cover the “base load”. Other technologies such as nickle iron “rob” resources from other technologies so are not realy contenders.

Thus we need to think about storing energy in other ways. As a first world householder the biggest use of energy is “moving heat around” something like 80% of “resistive” heating ends up wasted currently. You can store enough energy to keep a reasonably well insulated home comfortable for upto a week with a few cubic meters of water[4] using heat pumps that over all would use between 10-25% of the energy used by resistive heating. Add another system for “grey water” heat recovery and you could be looking at another significant saving depending on your life style. Ventilation through heat exchangers and condensors means homes can be maintaind with fresh air at constant humidity. There are experimental homes that use various techniques where even solar heating works throught the year for both hot water and heating if people remember to close doors etc.

[2] Oddly for many people, is the realisation of the main difference between first world and second/third world living in our homes is light, hot water, heating and what we eat. That is whilst a lot of our technology not just lighting has become very much more efficient over the last fourty years, other things have not. For instance such as that big “hidden” consumer of energy at around 0.25-1 kW hours of energy consumption is our fridge/freezers, especially upright freezers. One especially bad aspect of that is we don’t take the heat away, due to “building them in” to our kitchens so we make them consume even more energy. Because we trap the heat close around them. Heat which could be better used heating other places in the house or added to heat storage. Likewise washing/drying machines be they dishes or clothes.

[3] Another energy issue to do with our standard of living and health is “potable water” and the disposal of sewerage. As first world humans the waste of energy caused by our usages of potable water for everything is frankly astonishing and often a significant waste of resources. Many people waste more water washing their teeth than they drink in a day, because they leave the tap running whilst they do it. As for “having a pee” 9000ml of potable water to get rid of 100-500ml of 95% water urine on average should make people think. Saving and filtering “grey water” from washing people/clothes/dishes to use to flush instead makes a significant difference as would changing the design of toilets. However for “off grid” in poor soil areas using human waste liquid and solid to make compost and fertiliser will over a number of years significantly improve the soil quite safely, enabling it to trap more water and heat and be usefull for growing various low effort crops such as tall grasses that can be used to trap carbon and further improve the soil (hay mulch). Trapping further thermal energy helping to further enrich the soil via various biological processes and increasing the growing season of “storable crops” like root vegetables and canning/preserving of certain fruits such as tomatoes etc. Whilst the average garden would not be sufficient to feed one person for the whole year, the work involved with the likes of hay mulch culture is less than the comparative cost of organic vegtables (the hay can be “spoiled feed” and got for the price of taking it away).

[4] Whilst water has good storage potential between it’s two phase change points, the limited range between them and other issues (significant expansion) can cause problems. Unlike certain other “phase change” materials that can often look like waxes with room temprature melt points or hot water melt points. These work well, as do other room temprature materials that can be easily built into walls and the like. Even building the “concreate raft” on which many homes are built slightly differently will enable it to be used as a very large heat storage device and thermal buffer.

Clive Robinson • January 19, 2020 4:12 PM

@ MarkH,

With regards the odds.

Would you rather try and squeeze more life out of an AA carbon-zinc battery by putting it under your arm for half an hour, or go down to the shops and get a new battery?

If you stay in, the upside is you know that today at least you won’t get soaked by the rain catch a chill and get pneumonia, or struck by lightening, run down or in otherways get mauled by traffic, nor will you get mugged or arrested or all manner of other risks (may be not the zombie brain eaters though unless of course you are in Eastbourne[1] ;-).

But you do know that tommorow or the day after you are going to have to make the choice,

1, You are going to have to face those risks as the battery will not last.

2, You give up using what ever the battery is used for.

That is it’s not an “if” but “when” situation, even if you do find another trick to keep the battery going it will eventually fain, no ifs, buts or maybes it will fail.

Thus society is the person with choice, the battery is earth’s resources and the device is the standard of living.

Because like it or hate it you are going to shuffle of this mortal coil at some point, you can not currently avoid it. Importantly everything mankind does has a risk involved, also there is a probability of something happening whilst you are alive to just wipe you of the score board Thus the younger you are actually the greater the odds you are going to die by some event, sport or repeated activity. If you think about it, as you get towards the end of your life the odds actually start to look better.

Which is why somebody came up with a measure of this and called it “micromorts” thus sky diving is begining to look good again now I’m getting older.

I guess I better start thinking about a big fat life insurance policy, wait a year or two then start in on the “bucket list”…

Or alteratively I could stay indoors avoiding my own shadow eat oatmeal with prune juice, a touch of salad for lunch and bean soup for supper, and work out when it’s time to “Move to Eastbourne”[1].

[1] Eastbourne is a place on England’s south coast that has an unofficial town symbol of a “bath chair, over two crossed incontinence bags”, and looks like it is full of the living dead. Where truthfully every hotel reception desk has at least six stacks of business cards advertising mobility scooters, another dozen advertising “temporary nurses” and advice leaflets from the RSPCA about how to ensure your pets are looked after when you croak. And I suspect if you take a sneak look in the hotel emergancy telephone numbers list you will find every undertaker for twenty miles around sorted by what their referal “kickback” payments are, and how fast and discreetly they can get the stiff out of a hotel room so the hotel can get the next paying stiff to be in at premium rates. After all business is business and they are there to make the best of it in a tough economic climate. I’m told Florida has similar towns with not just Muzack in lifts, but deaf aid coils so even the old get tortured by “Merve and the mellow tones” doing “Copacabana”, or The girl from Ipanema”.