Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • May 16, 2023 5:12 AM

@ ALL,

A Quantum Computing improvement or a Deep Learning application

The original post got auto-moderated / blackholed… So,

Part 1,

A Tom’s Hardware article from today is more froth than substance which is a shame especialy as it also misses something important and gives the wrong impression. (effectively an abstract of an earlier release). So unless you are well versed in certain aspects of “Quantum Computing”(QC) and Deep Learning it may not appear to be of much interest. So better to read the original release it’s self,

Clive Robinson • May 16, 2023 5:19 AM

Part 3

[1] The RIKEN institution is comprised of many centers and employes around 3000 scientists in various centers,

‘ht tps://www.riken.j p/en/research/labs/

The “RIKEN center for Quantum Computing”(RQC) is just one of the many and it’s remit is given as,

RQC explores in a full-stack approach, from hardware to software and from basic science to applications, the frontier of quantum technologies through the research and development of quantum computers as innovative information processing units based on the principles of quantum mechanics.

Yup best to read the more genteel,

‘ht tps://www.riken.j p/en/research/labs/rqc/

[2] Kaoru Mizuta’s research / CV page,

‘ht tps://k-mizuta.github.io/index_eng.html

[3] However they are being combined to make several interesting tools,

‘ht tps://www.riken.j p/en/news_pubs/research_news/rr/20220411_1/index.html

Clive Robinson • May 16, 2023 12:22 PM

@ AL,

“What would get to the bottom of this – DNA analysis. We don’t need virologists, we need geneticists.”

Sorry but neither are capable of doing the whole puzzle, only small bits of it at most.

Let me put it this way, should you be convicted of murder just because what might be your very partial fingerprint was found on an object that might just have been at the crime scene but was found several kM away in a crowded city?

I would hope you would say no.

Remember any hope of this issue ever being believably solved ended when the then US Executive turned it into a political bludgeon to further a very dubious political cause. Truth flew out the window and has never returned.

Then a certain part of the MSM with all it’s lack of credibility[1] scientific or otherwise jumped as ordered, up onto the band waggon with the “Wetmarket or Lab” nonsense.

Oh and that same executive to put it politely behaved in all sorts of bizarre ways, and shoveled money into certain “favourd friends” pockets which will take the US tax paying citizenry well over thirty years to pay off on best estimate, even if the US economy does not go into a major recession because of such stupidities…

[1] Remember the prime MSM driver behind much of this nonsense is Rupert “the bear faced liar” Murdoch through his various media organs… The same group who repeatedly spread false, biased or questionable information not just throughout the pandemic and lockdown… But as a matter of making money hand over fist and remember he has just recently coughed up rather more than a kings ransom to avoid having to get up on a defendents podium and have to tell the truth about the lies they put out… To say they have no credability is an understatment.

Clive Robinson • May 16, 2023 2:15 PM

@ Winter, AL

Re : Location Location Location.

“What makes a “lab leak” different from a “bushmeat market leak”?”

Most legal labs have a recognised address at a known location, thus can and do get regularly inspected.

However many “Bushmeat markets” in China being not exactly legal, happen in many many places not just recognized market buildings so they don’t get inspected.

That is “Bushmeat dealers” deliver their products to restaurants, garages for pop-up mobile food bars, peoples homes, as well as selling on street corners out of the back of a van or lorry. Basically anywhere a customer with a handfull of cash is to be found is a place where wild animals cooped up in feces, urine and blood soaked cages and boxes with any diseases they might have will be found will be sold whole or in part[1]..

In a busy city which is a travel hub bush meat dealers will be found with little difficulty and mostly local authorities will “look the other way” for a whole host of reasons. Surprisingly to many not allways for bribery and corruption. Basic resourcing being one, as bush-meat is seen as a very low priority for various reasons thus other illegal activities get much higher priority. It’s the same in most cities around the world[2].

[1] Back when Chernobyl happened, few realised just how extensive the illegal cavia market was… Jokes about “glow in the dark tins” publicised just how far and wide it was…

[2] The thing about bush-meat is it’s international, if you know where to look or who to ask, most major cities any where in the world including London, New York, Paris and similar with ethnic communities from any of several continents will be supplying “traditional” medicine or aphrodisiacs to those with money who want them… It’s not just Rhino Horn, desicated seahorses, or bear gaul bladders, it’s just about anything, and the more endangered the species the higher the price, so perversly often the easier it is to obtain…

Clive Robinson • May 16, 2023 5:55 PM

@ JonKnowsNothing, Winter, ALL,

Re : AIV Soonerish

“Highly contagious, tens of thousands of birds of all species have died everywhere.”

Yes it has a reputaion for being fast mover…

“Mammals appear to get infected by being in close proximity with an infected bird-flock (inhaling, contact, fomite) or by consuming an infected bird.”

There have been a number of “human by contact” infections some fatal.

To be honest I’ve been expecting it to make the species jump into humans at a time when human-to-human flu is prevalent and thus make a recombinant mutation into a viable human to human form with high infectiousness for some years now…

And I find myself asking “When?” not “If?” and more pertinently,

“Why it’s not yet happened?”

Oddly perhaps C19 precautions and lockdown have probably delayed it happening (if you remember the precautions allegedly killed off another Human Influenza Virus).

On the assumption it does fully jump in the next few seasonal cycles and becomes Hum2Hum airborn of low to medium infectiousness (say R₀ less than 6 in a naive population)… Then we will need to consider quarantine lockdows untill we know how pathogenic it is. If the infectiousness is an R₀ greater than 8 then there is not much we will be able to do because there will be sufficient self centered idiots to ensure it will get into and spread in any population that does no have sufficient deterrent (such as very rapid lead poisoning no questions asked).

I seriously doubt that we will get worthwhile let alone cost effective anti-virals in time. As for new vaccines, I suspect way to many will not trust mRNA or Adenovirus-vectored again, and I can not say I blaim them.

I’ve always had significant doubts about the mRNA technology as my previous posts to this blog show, and it now appears that I was right to do so. I had only marginaly more confidence in the “other method” of Adenovirus-vectored vaccine which had the benifit of being a known working technology with a limited lab track record. Which is why I chose it out of the two available to me.

But as I’ve indicated all along I would have prefered the third traditional method of an inactivated or attenuated vaccine due to the much wider skirt and long known effective and safe track record.

The traditional vaccines using inactivated virus, are like the older “flu shots” you used to get and don’t infect your normal body cells so you don’t actually get the damage of an infection the other two give you (remember they both kill your body cells by infecting them).

Well… It turns out that the first two methods have between a 1:600 and 1:1000 significant risk if not fatality. Research in Germany and Japan suggests that the mRNA system can trigger an autoimmune disease. That is weeks after the vaccination active spike protein production is still going on in your body, and these spikes are attaching to various organs, that then cause the bodies immune system to destructively attack…

Having had a serious heart complication that very nearly killed me shortly after my second AZ shot. Then getting realy evasive behaviours from clinicians when trying to get the third “booster” shot I started looking into things and grew quite disquieted by what I found.

Now, especially as I am still suffering from the after effects nearly a year and three quaters latter, you can probable understand my increased reticence over these “new fangled” vaccine methods and why I’ll have to think long and hard over my likely risk factors…

Clive Robinson • May 17, 2023 8:03 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

Re : In the cloud is a pain beyond imagination…

“AWS again”

Why am I not surprised…

But lets be honest all cloud systems are bad news in one way or another, and why I’ve always recommend against them, except in certain very exceptional circumstances.

Security wise you have no control over a cloud provider… Worse if they muck up all you’ll get if you are lucky is very low levels of payment based on “loss of service” and even that will be some years down the line at best, if the provider does not wind up their business / go bankrupt first…

The savings you are going to get will be like the deals drug pushers use… The low cost you get today will be payed many times over when they have you on their hook wriggling like a helpless tiddler.

That much should be obvious.

Clive Robinson • May 18, 2023 6:41 PM

@ vas pup,

“I am deeply pro federal system of appointment prosecutors and judges – no election, no money at play.”

You don’t have to be “pro federal” to believe in “appointment by agreed merit”. In effect it should be “society decides” but anything with the word or notion of “social” in the US in particular is attacked by lets call them at best “conservitive” at worst “nut jobs”. Who want what they see as the “glories of the past”[1]”, which is usually a male dominated “Might is Right, and I have might” feudal system pretending to be either “ultra right wing” or “orthodox religion”, but in practice is the old “King Game” or “Man of Power” nonsense as we have more recently see it.

There tactic is to “claim the opposit” that is “social” or “common good” gets called “socialism” with the sub text of “communism” with both words so corrupted from their actual meanings thay become a meaningles “hate-shout” mantra. Which is what the intent is…

In Russia we see the supposed “Men of Power” saying the west is full of Nazi’s… It’s obviously not true, especially as the current “Men of Power” behaviours, more or less fit the actuall “fascism” descriptions.

But getting back to the “on merit” basis of awarding positions in the judiciary, in the UK for instance judges are technicaly appointed that way. But as we have seen very clearly demonstrated in the Scottish Judiciary “patronage” has significantly taken root.

However the “select on merit” process can be subverted, because it sufferes from the “faux-51%” problem. That is if the votes are biased so that it looks like a “majority vote” then the outcome is biased so it does in no way represent the “majority”.

So how can that faux-51% be achieved, that is what do you need to have in place to accomplishing a “take over” to appear to get the 51%?

Well there are a number of ways but the two you need to watch out for especially are,

1, Is to have a hierarchical system where there are very few if any voters at the very top. We call our systems “democratic” but in reality they are a “hierarchical representative” system not democratic in the slightest (and where patronage and bribery is rife and now apparently uncontrollable).

2, There is a “one of the candidates has to be selected” mechanism that is there is not a “none are suitable re-set and re-run” process. Usually this defect is coupled with a “casting vote” mechanism. To rig the system all you have to do is control the candidate selection process, and get a lock in with getting the casting vote holder in your group.

Thus you can slowely take over the system which is what some say –acctually for the wrong reasons– is why SCOTUS is now apparently significantly “right wing biased” even by US standards.

I could go on but as you can see, “any process” you might propose will suffer from the faux-51% problem…

Clive Robinson • May 20, 2023 8:41 AM

@ MarkH, JonKnowsNothing,

“If damage to an incoming missile prevents its warhead from detonating — or detonates it at high altitude — destruction on the ground can be reduced by a large factor.”

You are thinking conventional war heads…

Consider radiological war heads instead which is more likely… Then you are adding in various “salted earth options of more than biblical duration”.

These “rich-man” toys of hypersonich missiles realy hinges on four things,

1, Cost of delivery.
2, Time to target.
3, Type of payload.
4, Manoverability in flight.

Whilst the cost of these missiles can be in the 10s of billions to develop getting “range” unless using free fall is also eye wateringly expensive. Which is why the Chinese and Russians have –as far as we know– both gone for primary launch from ground being “under an aircrafts wing/belly”. This saves considerably on cost and significantly extends the range.

However what it also does is significantly increase the time and visabilit to the target. After which makes defending the target easier.

After all why try taking out “a hypersonic missile with short range”, when you can take out the “supersonic long range carrying aircraft”?

As I understand it the US looked into hypersonic missiles and decided they were actually not worth it. That is in just about all use cases when studied there were actually cheaper and more effective ways of ensuring mission success.

In part because hypersonic missiles are not realy manoverable… It’s not just the energy required but the strength of the vehicle required cuts down on not just the size but the mass of any warhead. As has been observed (about a small nuclear device),

“A war fought with million dollar hand grenades is going to be short and pyrrhic”

(which is why the “Davey Crockett” is about the smallest man portable battlefield nuke).

Like large naval carrier groups hypersonic missiles are only of use in asymmetric warfare where the opponent has no defensive capability at any stage of the deployment. And in the case of hypersonic missiles then the opponent probably does not have any targets worth the cost of their use compared to more conventional weapons.

However technology changes all the time… When Amazon indicated it was looking into developing drones to deliver packages, you can be sire that around one person in a thousand maybe more thought about delivering bombs by them, and more people with time.

Even expensive drones, are realy quite inexpensive compared to even conventional munitions and have several major advantages. As has been seen recently they can be used by “special forces” just like snippers and similar used to be used. The fact they improve the survivability of “behind lines” forces quite significantly might only be a temporary advantage to “lingering munitions” but there is little doubt about their current advantages.

Dropping even a few ounce bomb onto an airfield fuel tanker is going to cause a lot of issues for the opponents airforce because you take out their delivery capability whilst it is still on the ground.

At the moment the opponent has a small advantage in that they can deploy radio jamming but it’s not going to last.

Back when I was a quite young engineer I looked into the pros and cons of using jamming equipment for protecting VIP’s and I pointed out that there was the “donught effect” and similar[1] that an opponent could exploit. Anti-radar missiles already “fly down the beam” and making a low cost drone munition to do the same would not be difficult.

Then there is the consideration of an “auto-pilot” system with AI input. Currently AI as is being talked about in the MSM and trade journals is too resource intensive to hang off of a drone… But much much smaller AI with different capabilities are being developed as I type… There is already one derivitive of Meta’s monster that runs on a Raspberry Pi “Single Board Computer”(SBC)… The required capability of the Raspberry Pi in tetms of CPU and memory is available on much smaller “gum-stick” size SBC’s so… All it needs is a small number of incentivised software developers and radio jamming of drones as a deterant will become a thing of the past, in fact a positive liability as most of those jammers are hand held, having a beam-following bomb fly towards you is going to be quite a short battle of nervers.

[1] Any radiative source is a “spherical cow” but when you bring it close to either conductive or dialectic materials the cow gets form. One such is a UHF antenna mounted above the metal body of a vehicle. If you have a sensor in the road surface you know when the jammer is “going over the top” simply by the shape of the power spectrum of the jammer. In Northern Ireland they went for another option, they used a flash gun and a telescope in reverse to make a remote light trigger. You can currently find projects on the internet where the use of very high power LED’s and low cost lense systems have been used by radio amateurs to communicate considerable distances which would make line of sight control across an entire airfield easily accomplished and with a little thought and light weight plastic difficult if not impossible to jam.