Category Archives: Current Affairs

First They Came For the Nail Clippers….

Perry Metzger addresses the actual reported terrorist plot from the UK: First he addresses the chemical and logistical plausibility of what the news media have reported the terrorists as planning, and concludes that they would have had an interesting time actually pulling it off without spilling or being detected, unless they brought major constituent parts onboard already mixed, which is something we’ve known for a long time could be done. In other words, this doesn’t look to him like a new threat, so why are airlines and governments reacting as if it was, by adding all sorts of new searches and restrictions on carryon baggage?
And now, on to the fun part of this note. First they came for the nail clippers, but I did not complain for I do not cut my finger nails. Now they’ve come for the shampoo bottles, but I did not complain for I do not wash my hair. What’s next? What will finally stop people in their tracks and make them realize this is all theater and utterly ridiculous? Lets cut the morons off at the pass, and discuss all the other common things you can destroy your favorite aircraft with. Bruce Schneier makes fun of such exercises as “movie plots”, and with good reason. Hollywood, here I come!

On the implausibility of the explosives plot. by Perry E. Metzger, 11 Aug 2006, Interesting People.

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What can We Do about Terrorism?

Below is a slightly augmented (with links) version of a post I sent to Dave Farber’s Interesting People list in response to a request by another poster for what should government do regarding plots like the one recently foiled regarding infiltrating planes in the UK to attack the U.S.; the poster asked:

Now that the maniacs have our full attention, I’ll ask once more the question I’ve asked before:

What should a government do?  How far should it go, to surveil, arrest and interrogate the sort of people who’d plan something like this? It’s all very well to complain of governmental threats to our liberty; indeed, such complaints are a vital part of that liberty, so keep ’em coming.  But at some point, somebody’s got to decide what we will do against these disgusting, murderous fanatics.

And so the question:  To foil plots like these, what would IPers do?

A very interesting question on news from the UK, Hiawatha Bray, 10 August 2006.

Well, for one thing, IPers can continue to discourage use of methods that have little promise of working, such as blanket scans of all telephone numbers or electronic mail, which just increase the haystack without making finding the needle more likely, or national ID cards such as the British government has been pushing lately.

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Turning Alcohol

Ethyl alcohol – C2H5OH – CH3-CH2-OH:

I don’t think of ethanol as an alternative fuel; I think gasoline should be the alternative fuel that meets 10 to 20 percent of my needs. We definitely don’t need hydrogen. We don’t need new car engines, designs, or distribution. In less than five years, we can, with very little cost, make an irreversible change in our trajectory. With little cost to consumers, little cost to automakers, and no money from the government.

Biofuels: Think Outside The Barrel, Vinod Khosla, Google TechTalks, March 29, 2006

Khosla, a well-known venture capitalist, has been examining how Brazil did it, how they benefited including greatly reduced oil imports, and he presents a plan for how the U.S. can do it. He starts by pointing out that once you discount subsidies and taxes, the production costs of ethanol are only about $1.00/gallon vs. $1.60 for gasoline. Then he walks through why we should do this, and how to do it.

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Base Rate Fallacy

Bruce Schneier explains why making the haystack bigger doesn’t help us find a needle that keeps changing:

For example, even highly accurate medical tests are useless as diagnostic tools if the incidence of the disease is rare in the general population. Terrorist attacks are also rare, any "test" is going to result in an endless stream of false alarms.

Data Mining for Terrorists, Bruce Schneier, March 09, 2006, Schneier on Security.

And many false alarms mean a lot of innocent people being harassed needlessly, in other words, civil liberties being eroded for little or no benefit.

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Ed Felten on Net Neutrality

Here’s an interesting paper by Ed Felten that makes some good points about net neutrality, such as that it’s really about control of innovation.

Nonetheless, he misses one of the main points. He recommends wait and see before any regulation, which ignores that the FCC already changed the rules 5 August 2005 when it reclassified DSL services as Information Services rather than Telecommunications Services, and adopted some unenforced principles instead.

In other words, wait and see is wait and let the telcos get away with having already abrogated net neutrality.

-jsq

PS: Seen on boingboing.

Is a Four-Fold Increase a Risk?

This one pretty much speaks for itself:
More than land-use changes or forest management practices, the changing climate was the most important factor driving a four-fold increase in the average number of large wildfires in the Western United States since 1970, the researchers concluded.

The average spring and summer temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees higher in Western states between 1987 and 2003 than during the previous 17 years. In fact, the seasonal temperatures were the warmest since record-keeping started in 1895, the researchers said.

While the researchers stopped short of linking increased wildfire intensity to global warming caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases, they were confident that they had documented a broad climate trend and not a fluke of natural weather variability.

Wildfire Increase Linked to Climate Higher temperatures over 34 years — rather than land-use changes — have led to more blazes, researchers say. They’re sure it’s not a fluke. By Robert Lee Hotz, Times Staff Writer, L.A. Times, July 7, 2006

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Telco Double Dipping

Here’s a useful analogy for thinking about net neutrality:
On today’s Internet, sending and receiving data has already been paid for and what the ISPs that are resisting net neutrality are calling for is the ability to charge content providers a second time for access to their customers. An apt analogy would be the phone company attempting to take a percentage of any transaction that was done over the phone. The calling party has already paid for the phone call, the receiving party has either paid for the phone call (metered services or cell phone) or has paid for unlimited inbound calling through a subscription. However, the phone company sees that there is money being made by others transacting business over their phone lines and decides they deserve a cut.

Network neutrality is about control Gaige Paulsen, Monday, June 26 2006 @ 10:34 am EDT

If telcos want to provide their own value added services, as they have long done, that’s one thing. If they want to charge somebody else for providing value added services on top of the telco’s carriage, that’s another thing entirely. Gaige also addresses consumer control, content delivery networks, differential utlization, and why net neutrality is a regulatory issue; well worth a read.

-jsq

Framing Net Neutrality

Interesting bit of political framing here:
Put another way, if net neutrality passes, the AT&Ts of the world will be forced to pay for all of their equipment upgrades themselves and could not subsidize that effort by imposing premium fees for premium services. If net neutrality fails, they will be able to recoup more of those costs than they can now from the likes of Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and other major users of the World Wide Web.

At its heart, then, the battle is commercial — over who pays how much for improvements to the Internet that we all use and sometimes love.

No Neutral Ground in This Internet Battle By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum Washington Post Monday, June 26, 2006; Page D01

I’d be more willing to believe that if the various incumbent carriers or their predecessors hadn’t already been promising us fast broadband for everyone for many years now, and if Japan and Korea hadn’t already managed it without this kind of finagle. Continue reading →

A Muslim Seminary Has How Many Divisions?

Two American sheiks have formed a Muslim seminary:

Sheik Hamza Yusuf, in a groomed goatee and sports jacket, looked more like a hip white college professor than a Middle Eastern sheik. Imam Zaid Shakir, a lanky African-American in a long brown tunic, looked as if he would fit in just fine on the streets of Damascus.

U.S. Muslim Clerics Seek a Modern Middle Ground By LAURIE GOODSTEIN, New York Times, Published: June 18, 2006

The story goes on about how the two each understand both Islam and U.S. popular culture. Judging by the examples, they also understand both Islamic and Christian religious history. It continues:

Mr. Yusuf told the audience in Houston to beware of "fanatics" who pluck Islamic scripture out of context and say, "We’re going to tell you what God says on every single issue."

"That’s not Islam," Mr. Yusuf said. "That’s psychopathy."

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VoIP CALEA Considered Risky

The FCC has required extension of CALEA to VoIP. An all-star cast of Internet security and protocol people beg to differ:
In order to extend authorized interception much beyond the easy scenario, it is necessary either to eliminate the flexibility that Internet communications allow, or else introduce serious security risks to domestic VoIP implementations. The former would have significant negative effects on U.S. ability to innovate, while the latter is simply dangerous. The current FBI and FCC direction on CALEA applied to VoIP carries great risks.

Security Implications of Applying the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act to Voice over IP, by Steve Bellovin, Matt Blaze, Ernie Brickell, Clint Brooks, Vint Cerf, Whit Diffie, Susan Landau, Jon Peterson, John Treichler.

Which is more valuable? A free, extensible, and relatively secure Internet, or one controled by a state? Continue reading →