Insecurity Leaders?

Okay, I've just got my copy of the infosecleaders.com Career Survey. Now, you'd think that somebody emailing something like this out to a bunch of people who think they are, and may even be, information security 'leaders', would obey some basic principles of email security? Especially as it has been over a year since they set the survey up (as an aside, I don't remember completing it but don't really doubt that I did ...)

Anyway, one of these is that any links in the email should point to a URI in the domain of the sender - so (made up) www.infosecleaders.com/1stsurveyresults.pdf - for example. Instead we have, under the "Download the results here." link: http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/? and some php variables".

Fail. Seriously. If we can't get this sort of thing right then why would anybody bother listening?

At least they didn't link you to a page requiring you to log in ...

A Sensible Politician?

Just where did the Tories get Philip Davies? I don't see much of a future for him in the enormously-foreheaded one's socio-green-europhilic movement. I hope his rather slim majority improves if he continues to come up with stuff like this:

I know that we have other business to discuss today so I shall not detain the House any longer. I despair at the endless consensus that there seems to be in the House, which is forever seeking to restrict people's freedoms in this country, to try to stop them doing things that they do legitimately and, in the overwhelming majority of cases, without any problem. For hon. Members to lecture people constantly about what they may and may not do, and what they should and should not say, is depressing beyond belief. The report is more of the same-more of the nanny state.

I know for a fact that the moment the proposed measures are introduced, the zealots represented on the Select Committee will be back for more, and back for more again. They are never satisfied. Dr. Taylor said that he wanted the Government to go a little further and do a little more. Unfortunately, he and the people whom he represents always want the Government to go a little further and do a little more.

and this:

My problem is that those are the sort of measures that his Government are keen to introduce as well. We appear to have a Dutch auction between the Scottish Executive and the Westminster Government as to who can introduce the biggest nanny state of all. I am afraid that both are going in completely the wrong direction. I agree with the sentiment behind his point, but I do not think that his Government are any less guilty than the Scottish Executive.

The debate was about minimum pricing for alcohol. But that is unimportant. H/t to the Filthy Smoker over at DK.

Quote of the Day

From the Test Match Special live text feed:

From Tony at work in Jakarta, via text: "Need to toss a coin here - heads to follow the cricket, tails the F1, and landing on the edge doing more work. Tough choice"

Unfortunately, I've two reports to write. But I have a 2nd monitor ...

Newton's Laws

Dear Billy,

(Cartoon is a classic from xkcd.)

I have addressed your points - Everything you say is against Newtons Laws - an aluminium plane cannot do what you are claiming.

All videos of 911 show the planes melt into the buildings, with the builings sealing themselves up after the plane has entered, then exploding inside after coming to a sudden halt, then the building is supposed to have weakened and collapsed because of the fires from the plane fuel which burns at 816 Degrees Cent (in an enclosed space even though you see the fuel burn up in seconds on the videos) when in fact steel melts at 1482 Degrees Cent.

in lieu of a longer post, which will have to wait until I finish work today, I am posting "Newton's Laws" - I assume you meant 'Newton's Laws of Motion" - I can't see what gravity, cooling or viscosity have to do with this.) Which of these states that an aluminium (they're not, really, but it probably doesn't make that much difference) aircraft will bounce off (or be completely stopped outside of) a modern building?

1.  Law of Inertia. Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.

2. The change of momentum of a body is proportional to the impulse impressed on the body, and happens along the straight line on which that impulse is impressed.

3. Law of Reciprocal Action: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

Now, when a Boeing 767 hits the glass and concrete facade of a steel-frame building, it will slow down. Rapidly. At 300knots there is nearly 20 million N.s involved in that impact. Moving at roughly 150 m/s, and at under 50m long, you are going to get a lot of force.  Basically, Law 1 says that, unless you have a force, the plane will keep on moving.  That force comes, mostly, from the structural materials of the building.  Law 2 allows you to calculate or estimate the forces involved and you then start to have to worry about sheer and other stresses (oh, and the integrity of welds and effects of corrosion and all sorts of clever materials effects).  Law 3 says that the necessary force on the plane is matched by an equal and opposite force on the building.  Please note here that you maintain that the plane(s) could not have gone in to the building- that they would have been stopped by the concrete surrounds of the windows.

Glass and the thin concrete in the facade simply do not have the shear toughness to take this and crack or crumble, failing to provide enough force to stop the plane,  which carries on into the building. Slowing down quite rapidly and falling apart (because aircraft aren't tough enough to take this sort of thing either) - although some of the bits, especially the engines, will keep going for longer being both more dense and more sturdy. At some point (not many seconds later), a large plane, like a 767, will hit the frame and either shatter that (causing a fairly immediate collapse) or come (mostly) to rest. A light plane (Piper Dakota, for example) will wear off its velocity against other objects - desks, computers, people, filing cabinets, whatever - and may not reach the main frame - especially if the floors are quite strong.

I will note here that as kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the velocity and momentum only linearly, then there will now be a lot of "spare" energy about.  Under the first law of thermodynamics, this can't just wander off and go for a coffee, so has to hang around.  Most of it will be as heat energy.  Which will have a bad effect on all of the fuel now inside the building ...

A slightly heavier (than the Piper) but much less tough (either then the Piper or a 767 - aerospace technology has improved dramatically since then) plane (a 10 tonne B-52 Liberator bomber, without bombs) hit the Empire State Building in 1945.    No direct energy weapons then.  Eye witness accounts, from inside the 79th floor, have the plane exploding inside the building ...

Rats to the Rescue

This is superb.

When they smell a landmine, they stop, sniff the ground and begin to dig. This signal lets the Apopo staff know they have found a mine or some other explosive, which can then be removed.

Rats, according to Apopo, are much faster than men using metal detectors and are not distracted by metal contaminants. They are much cheaper to maintain than dogs and are easily passed between different handlers.

Human vermin plant them, careful rodents help us to dig them up.  And, unlike dowsing rods, it actually works.

Quote of the Day

From the good Mr Worstall, elsewhere:

the one where we start our economics by assuming that politicians are indeed lying weasel felchers right at the beginning.

The only thing I would change is to widen the concept by substituting 'thinking' for 'economics'.

Why the 'Scare Quotes'?

BBC:

NHS money 'wasted' on homeopathy

And, this is 'news'?

True Labour

Somewhat tardily, from Tom Harris:

We can assume that, in an STV election, the minor parties (Conservative, Liberal, SNP, etc) would be represented among the seven MPs elected.

So, in the Tom Harris world (Glasgow-centric as it clearly must be), the SNP (current Scottish government and 7 out of 59 MPs and even one of the Glasgow MPs - never mind 5 out of the 17 MSPs) and the Lib-Dems (12 out of 59 MPs and Labour's quislings in the last Scottish Executive) are "minor parties"? Okay, yes, the Tories are ...

I can't be arrsed collating the vote figures but Labour's 6 out of 7 Glasgow MPs (especially remembering that one of them was unopposed, well, by anybody serious, at the last General Election) isn't looking like a safe bet this time round.

Just for info:

How Tom Harris voted on key issues since 2001:

Voted moderately against a transparent Parliament.
Voted very strongly for introducing ID cards.
Voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees.
Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
Voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war.
Voted very strongly for replacing Trident.

And finally, a view on weegie politics via the WSJ.

Bloody BBC

Article.

Section title:

Cyber-warfare

Section:

Sir Stephen's comments followed speeches from his Army and Royal Navy counterparts.

He described his views on the future nature of warfare as "complementing and not contradicting" those of his fellow service chiefs.

His emphasis was on the uniqueness of air power, its ability to shape campaigns and the huge advantage it gives Britain's forces, not least in the current campaign in Afghanistan.

He made clear his view that the RAF's role was a much broader one than many realise - whether in a support role, intelligence-gathering, reconnaissance or close air support.

Go on. Which part of that addresses "cyber-warfare"?

Surprised?

Shocked even? This, from the BBC:

More than half of those of both sexes questioned said there were some circumstances when a rape victim should accept responsibility for an attack.

Now, that just shows both how difficult the debate has become and the wider issues surrounding "one person's word against another's" crimes - domestic violence, for example. And women who have been raped are appalled by the survey results.

It (the BBC article, the report, the questions in the research for the report or the questioned) also misses the fundamental difference between 'responsibility' (or as the subsequent comments have it 'blame') and 'contributory behaviour'. I would like to demonstrate with two much less emotionally charged or controversial examples:

• I accidentally forget to lock my car when parking it in a city centre car park. Somebody steals the car, or something from the car. They are a thief and are criminally responsible for their actions. My behaviour in parking the car in the city centre is neither (unreasonably) contributory nor responsible. My failure to lock the car is significantly contributory. This should make no difference to the criminal case but might reasonably change the amount, for example, that my insurance company would pay out.
• I am dismissed from my job for some heinous offence against good taste (I have a number of ties that should do the job.) My tie-disaster is so extravagant evil that they fail to follow the corporate disciplinary policy and summarily dismiss me with immediate effect. I go to Tribunal. It is, because of the failure to follow policy, automatically unfair dismissal. In a heroic devotion to justice and truth, one of the lay members of the panel asks to see the tie. As they are rushed away to Intensive Care, the Chairman declares that my behaviour contributed 99% to my dismissal therefore my compensation will be minimal.

'Blame' for criminal acts, whether life-changingly drastic like rape or trivial, lies with the criminal (unless they do not have the capacity for mens rea in an offence that requires it - in which case they need to be in, or under, some form of care.)

Yes, there are defences of, or similar to, provocation (e.g. self-defence) and there are pleas of mitigation - only the former of these shifts (or removes) responsibility. And I fail to see, under modern British law, how 'provocation' can apply to sexual offences.

Edited to add: Having reread this post, after reading Bella's comment, I can see how my two examples (where the contributory factor is high) might lead people to think I am excusing rapists or blaming victims. If you get that impression - please reread the third and second-last paragraphs of the original article, where I clearly didn't make it clear the difference between responsibility / blame on one side and low risk versus high risk behaviour on the other. No-one 'deserves' to be raped. Equally, if less significantly, no-one 'deserves' to have their car stolen. Regardless of the seriousness of the offence, 'high risk behaviour' is no excuse for the criminal.

Truth from the BBC? Never!

Yes:

Hamas is the Palestinian militant Islamist organisation that runs Gaza.

Only, it has to be said, because it's a journo that has been 'detained'. (Union) comradeship is thicker than ethics, perhaps?

Paul Martin is, of course, a freelancer for the BBC and has form locally.

Note: as a matter of simply feeling right about the world, not that that or any principle applies to journalists, I do hope that the Paul Martin who writes reasonably interesting articles about Palestine is a different Paul Martin to this one.

Probably Not the Last Word

So, Met Commander (previously a Thames Valley Police Chief Inspector) Ali Dizaei is finally convicted of something (in this case, 'perverting the course of justice' and 'misconduct in a public office'). It is almost certainly not the last we will hear of this, never mind that of his 4 year sentence (2 inside and 2 on licence, according to the judge's direction), he'll probably be out (even in the unlikely event that he doesn't appeal) for Valentines Day 2011.

A trained barrister¹, with a PhD² and in the "oh shit, we've no senior ethnics" reaction that most of the civil and uniformed services had in the 80s & 90s (as a reaction to their almost completely white male management structures - yes, institutional racism, just like the rest of society back then), he was probably a shoe-in for (reasonably) high rank. Now, I've never met the guy, so I have no idea whether he is the ignorant, bullying clown with dubious social connections portrayed in many of the comments on the police blogs and in some of the trial reports or whether, after so much investigation, the IPCC and CPS have merely demonstrated Richleau's maxim:

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

It has to be said that "misconduct in public office" and "perverting the course of justice" are scarcely rare amongst the ruling class of Blairs' Britain - witness MPs expenses, John Prescott, the endless and scandalous BAE saga and John Prescott. And I've never done any investigation where I haven't found something that could be considered dubious (even where there was no evidence that the suspects or their acquaintances were even loosely connected to the original alleged issue.)

But, regardless, a couple of things concern me:

• Was this just the "entitlement culture" of the modern dictatorship, unbound by the endless 'getting away with it' (for any definition of 'it') that all of the previous investigations, the not-guilty verdicts and the compensation would have given anybody bar a saint, or did the man start out as a fraud (it must be admitted that he clearly started out as an effective self-publicist)?
• Why is a Met Police Commander - a Royal Appointment and one of the most senior ranks in the British Police services - allowed to hold dual nationality and, let's be honest about it, dual nationality in a state that has repeatedly demonstrated its armed hostility to Britain and its interests?

Update: And, yes, as I suggested might just happen, we have an appeal against his "completely outrageous" conviction as a result of the vendetta the world has against him. Would he just get out of the JCB?

1. Yes, legally qualified - but some of the news reports have this 'trained barrister' in. He joined the police at 24 - PhD by then is quick but not unusual; cramming in another year 'taking dinners' is moving quickly. Did he then complete his pupillage? If so, which chambers?

2. On 'police racism', "The Thin Black Line" - according to the Daily Hate, which also implies he took it much later (completion shortly before joining the Met), as opposed to the Telegraph's timeline - "He was privately educated at Slindon College in Sussex, trained as a barrister and took a PhD before joining Thames Valley Police in 1986." Obviously, if he did his PhD part-time or sabbatical from the cop-shop, it makes the timings in note 1 more reasonable.

And In Shock News, Today

Pope Benedict has acted as if he were a traditionalist Catholic. The National Secular Society object (but are probably too nice a bunch of people to shit in the woods.)

Richard Dawkins doesn't like Christians. The National Secular Society, unsurprisingly, say nothing.

And a very nice satire here.

Another day in the jungle.

Mathematical and Economic Ignorance

From "Scottish Business Insider" and parroted by the never-surprised-by-their-incompetence at al-Beeb:

Profits at Scotland's main companies plummeted last year by 182%, according to a new analysis.

However, the number of the country's top 500 corporates that increased their profits was nearly as high as the number who saw them fall.

The steepness of the fall was due to the crises at the Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland.

Profits can't fall, never mind plummet, by more than 100% before they stop being profits and start being losses ...

I suppose they mean that overall losses this year were 82% of last year's profits but it is too difficult to tell.

More Reverse Burden of Proof

Okay, the vile disease is spreading. The "The Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2010" has been introduced and this enables automatic gates to be used for certain classes of entrant - hence "grant or refusal of leave otherwise than by notice in writing". No stamp in your passport (unless you have a visa.) Quick, convenient, to everybodies' benefit - travellers, officials etc.

Until they catch somebody who's been through one of these gates and say "prove how you came in to the country". You have no access to the UK Borders Agency systems or the airline systems and even if you had kept your boarding card, that is only evidence that you checked in for a particular flight (it could trivially be alleged, for example, that you merely changed flights at Heathrow - therefore never actually entered the country.) But, still, from the explanatory note:

where any question arises under the Immigration Acts as to whether a person has leave to enter the United Kingdom and the person alleges that the person has such leave by virtue of passing through an automated gate under article 8A, the onus shall be on the person to show the manner and date of entry into the United Kingdom.

I'll note that in the other cases from the 2000 SI, as originally implemented, you were either given leave to remain by telephone or by a notice to a responsible 3rd party. In both these cases, I would assume that you would have had some documentation of your initial entry to the UK in your passport - which is what you have to prove - when and how did you enter the UK. It is the "leave to remain", subsequently granted and which you are not required to prove, that comes without a document.

Bastards. Just evil bastards. I'll note that this cunting thing is a draft - I hope, but strongly doubt, that they'll fix it.