Category Archives: Technology

Quote of the day—Dr. Monica Gandhi

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I think the mRNA vaccine technology is going to have a huge role to play for other pathogens. The mRNA platform allows the human host to generate a protein of the virus or other pathogen to which to raise an immune response, and has been revolutionary for COVID-19. So, after trying so many other vaccine candidates before for HIV without success, this is a very promising platform to hopefully reach this elusive goal.

Dr. Monica Gandhi
December 15, 2021
Scientists are closing in on an HIV vaccine
[I remember when AIDS first hit the news. People didn’t even know if it was a virus. Just like all the different theories about COVID and the vaccines today there were strange things believed by people about AIDS. I remember one guy who claimed there were studies which proved K-Y Jelly caused it. The better known conspiracy theory is that it was a man-made pathogen created to exterminate homosexual men.

Of course it has been conclusively proven that it is a virus, named HIV, and it is believed to have originated in non-human primates in West-central Africa. Back in the early 1980’s I expected, “They will get this figured out in a couple years.” Forty years later yet another “promising vaccine” is in the works. And it will have all, and perhaps more, of the baggage carried by the mRNA COVID vaccines.

Looking at the parallels of the conspiracy theories associated with this pandemic and AIDS, I have to wonder if the resolutions will have a similar time decay constant.—Joe]

Warp drive background

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This article came out prior to the announcement of the creation of the first warp bubble. It provides relatively easy to understand background material on the theory of warp drive.

Job security

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Every day I take a quick glance at my tools I can see evidence of the constant attempts to gain illegal access to my company’s computer networks. Each day there are 10s of thousands of probes from thousands of IP address.

To the best of my knowledge my company doesn’t do this sort of thing but people on my team sometimes talk about it and wonder if we should do it:

Microsoft Seizes 42 Websites Used by China-Based Hacking Group to Carry Out Cyberattacks on US Organizations

So far, the company said its Digital Crimes Unit, through 24 lawsuits—five of which were against nation-state actors—had taken down more than 10,000 malicious websites used by cybercriminals and almost 600 used by nation-state actors, and had blocked the registration of 600,000 more.

It’s very resource intensive to push these things through the legal system. Resources that could be used to harden and/or detect and remediate breaches. There are no easy answers and I don’t fault management for the decisions they have made.

I just know that, for me, as long as there are evil people out there, it means I will have job security.

First warp bubble created

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I wish Eric Engstrom were still alive. He died just over a year ago and planned to live long enough to travel to other solar systems in warp drive capable ships. This plan of his was one part of his recruitment speech when he wanted me to join his startup company Chromium Communications.

Today it was announced some scientists accidently created a Nano sized warp bubble. This the first step in creating a warp drive:

I guess I and other friends of Eric will have to take those trips without him.

Good to know

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FBI document shows what data can be obtained from encrypted messaging apps:

App Legal process & additional
details
Apple
iMessage		 *Message content
limited.
*Subpoena: can render basic
subscriber information.
*18
USC §2703(d): can render 25 days of iMessage lookups and from a
target number.
*Pen
Register: no capability.
*Search
Warrant: can render backups of a target device; if target uses
iCloud backup, the encryption keys should also be provided with content return
can also acquire iMessages from iCloud returns if target has enabled Messages in
iCloud.
Line *Message content
limited.
*Suspect’s
and/or victim’s registered information (profile image, display name, email
address, phone number, LINE ID, date of registration, etc.)
*Information
on usage.
*Maximum of seven days worth of
specified users’ text chats (Only when E2EE has not been elected and applied and
only when receiving an effective warrant; however, video, picture, files,
location, phone call audio and other such data will not be
disclosed).
Signal *No message
content.
*Date
and time a user registered.
*Last date of a
user’s connectivity to the service.
Telegram *No message
content.
*No

contact information provided for law enforcement to pursue a court order. As per
Telegram’s privacy statement, for confirmed terrorist investigations, Telegram
may disclose IP and phone number to relevant authorities.
Threema *No message
content.
*Hash
of phone number and email address, if provided by user.
*Push
Token, if push service is used.
*Public
Key
*Date (no time) of Threema ID
creation.
Date (no time) of last
login.
Viber *No message
content.
*Provides
account (i.e. phone number)) registration data and IP address at time of
creation.
*Message history: time, date,
source number, and destination number.
WeChat *No message
content.
*Accepts
account preservation letters and subpoenas, but cannot provide records for
accounts created in China.
*For non-China
accounts, they can provide basic information (name, phone number, email, IP
address), which is retained for as long as the account is
active.
WhatsApp *Message content
limited.
*Subpoena: can render
basic subscriber records.
*Court
order: Subpoena return as well as information like
blocked users.
*Search
warrant: Provides address book contacts and WhatsApp
users who have the target in their address book contacts.
*Pen register: Sent
every 15 minutes, provides source and destination for each message.
*If
target is using an iPhone and iCloud backups enabled, iCloud returns may contain
WhatsApp data, to include message content.
Wickr *No message
content.
*Date
and time account created.
*Type of device(s)
app installed on.
*Date of last use.
*Number of messages.
*Number
of external IDs (email addresses and phone numbers) connected to the account,
bot not to plaintext external IDs themselves.
*Avatar image.
*Limited
records of recent changes to account setting such as adding or suspending a
device (does not include message content or routing and delivery
information).
*Wickr version
number.

Prepare appropriately.

Skynet smiles

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I sometimes joke about the Skynet of the Terminator movies. And occasionally I get serious about it. But this is the first time I ever had a strong Skynet inspired chill engulf me when read about a new technology:

The 2.6 trillion transistors in the WSE-2 are organized into 850,000 cores. According to Cerebras Systems, the chip’s cores are optimized for the specific types of mathematical operations that neural networks use to turn raw data into insights. The WSE-2 stores the data being processed by a neural network using 40 gigabytes of speedy onboard memory.

Cerebras Systems says that the WSE-2 has 123 times more cores and 1,000 times more on-chip memory than the closest GPU.

I’m not sure why that emotional response occurred. It was as if some threshold had not just been crossed, but leaped over by such a huge margin. The potential threat became, not just real, but something much greater than that. I can’t say that I know or even really suspect that is true. It was just an emotional reaction.

However, see also what Elon Musk has to say about AI:

Never forget that a computer’s attention span is no longer than its power cord.

Prepare appropriately.

Dark lightning

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“Dark lightning” has apparently been known since 1994. However, I had not heard of it until recently. Here is what NASA said about it in 2013:

Researchers studying thunderstorms have made a surprising discovery: The lightning we see with our eyes has a dark competitor that discharges storm clouds and flings antimatter into space.

Storm clouds are sometimes producing anti-matter? Wow!

Quote of the day—BioViva Science

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In fiction and the popular imagination the quest for youth is associated with a bevy of unsavory characters: pharaohs, vampires, and Saturday morning villains. Yet the real face of longevity research is us, all of us. All of us who have ever had to watch a friend or family member lose everything to an age-related illness, all of us who have had to sit by while a “natural” process executed an innocent person. What sort of perverse imagination could think anyone deserves to die in this way?

BioViva Science
Email sent on November 11, 2021
[I’ve had many people tell me something to the effect of there being something wrong with wanting to live for much longer than the currently expected lifetimes. The reasons were varied and none were compelling to me. Probably the best was something to the effect that there needed to be “room” for new people with new ideas to prevent a stagnation of civilization and possibly technological advancement.

The worst was rather personal.

As my mother was sliding away with Alzheimer I had a friend cheerfully tell me I should enjoy the natural aging. As that is what she did as her grandfather as his brain failed and he could no longer recognize family and friends or speak coherently.

I didn’t accept her advice then and I don’t now.

There is evidence scientists are close to effective treatments if not outright cures for dementia. With my family history I see this as a race between scientists and time. I have a rather keen interest in this race as my life has a much higher than acceptable risk of being decided by the winner.—Joe]

Slowly at first then rapidly

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Shortages of both goods and services combined with massive government spending are resulting in inflation. And now there are predictions of increasing electrical power outages:

Longer, more frequent outages afflict the U.S. power grid as states fail to prepare for climate change

Across the nation, severe weather fueled by climate change is pushing aging electrical systems past their limits, often with deadly results. Last year, the average American home endured more than eight hours without power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration — more than double the outage time five years ago.

I suppose you can call it “climate change”. Assuming it’s the political climate you have in mind. From the same article:

…state regulators largely have rejected these ideas, citing pressure to keep energy rates affordable. Of $15.7 billion in grid improvements under consideration last year, regulators approved only $3.4 billion, according to a national survey by the NC Clean Energy Technology Center — about one fifth.

After a weather disaster, “everybody’s standing around saying ‘why didn’t you spend more to keep the lights on?’” Ted Thomas, chairperson of the Arkansas Public Service Commission, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “But when you try to spend more when the system is working, it’s a tough sell.”

Politicians are demanding “green electricity”. But most types of “green electricity” are unreliable and more expensive. And at the same time there are demands to remove hydroelectric dams. Then they demand electricity be “affordable”. The grid is aging and stretched to the limit by increased consumption, decreasing production, and regulators don’t allow rate increases to replace and improve the equipment. Socialism, it’s the poison pill working it’s evil upon humanity.

A phrase comes to mind which was commonly used in regards to the “eco-freaks” when I was electrical engineering school, “Let them freeze in the dark.”

But the problem is it won’t be those who created the problem who “enjoy” the fruits of their work. It will be those who are out of political favor who will be last in line to get their share of the rationed electricity, food, medical care, etc.

Our situation will likely slowly deteriorate on all fronts then as all the reserves in the system are consumed it will be a rapid, catastrophic, and systemic failure. Prepare appropriately.

I need to include good backup electricity for my underground bunker.

The TRUTH is here!

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It has been claimed:

The TRUTH is here!

From, and for, a politician?

Yeah. Sure. Thanks for the info. I’ll check in occasionally.

Quote of the day—kot-begemot-uk

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Hal, put your signature on the patent application
I am sorry Dave, I can’t do that

kot-begemot-uk
September 24, 2021
Comment to UK Appeals Court Rules AI Cannot Be Listed As a Patent Inventor
[Interesting topic. Currently the world courts are divided on the subject.

In August, an Australian Court ruled an AI can be an inventor. A U.S. court agrees with the UK ruling that an AI cannot be listed as an inventor.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jennifer Granick

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Trawling through Google’s search history database enables police to identify people merely based on what they might have been thinking about, for whatever reason, at some point in the past. This is a virtual dragnet through the public’s interests, beliefs, opinions, values and friendships, akin to mind reading powered by the Google time machine. This never-before-possible technique threatens First Amendment interests and will inevitably sweep up innocent people, especially if the keyword terms are not unique and the time frame not precise. To make matters worse, police are currently doing this in secret, which insulates the practice from public debate and regulation.

Jennifer Granick
Surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Exclusive: Government Secretly Orders Google To Identify Anyone Who Has Searched A Name, Address And Telephone Number
[As I have mentioned before I’ve been impressed with Granick on Internet freedom issues.

Avoid the use of Google. They are evil. Use DuckDuckGo or something similar, use a privacy window in your browser and consider using a VPN such as Private Internet ACCESS.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Annalee Armstrong

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HIV integrates its genetic material into the genome of a host cell, meaning available therapies just can’t remove it. A team of scientists at Temple University and the University of Nebraska Medical Center managed to remove the virus completely from mice during preclinical testing using a combination of CRISPR and antiretroviral therapy. They also found no adverse events that could be linked to the therapy in the study, published back in 2019.

…

The company is also working on similar treatments for other viruses, including herpes and hepatitis B.

Annalee Armstrong
September 27, 2021
Excision’s CRISPR gene editing therapy for HIV is heading into human testing after FDA clearance
[A few months ago a male friend (who I suspect is bi-sexual) pointed out that COVID-19 is not the first pandemic our generation has lived through. My thinking about this enabled a quick response to different friend just a few days later who was pontificating on how COVID-19, “Hit the sweet spot of infectiveness and lethality.” I disagreed, “It could be a lot more lethal.” “Not really”, he replied, “It would be hard to be more lethal and still infect a lot of people because it would kill people before they could infect as many people as it does.” I had a three letter acronym response, “HIV”.

He immediately conceded. A disease as infectious as chickenpox with the silent latency and deadliness of HIV would have the potential to exterminate humanity.

I fear that as long as we have global trade if we don’t develop the ability to respond to new diseases in timeframes of weeks, or perhaps days, some disease will, “Find the sweet spot” (or be engineered) to close the curtain on humans.

HIV was first recognized as a new disease in 1981. At the time I figured scientists would have it figured out and curable in “five or ten years”. Forty years later a promising cure is going into human trials.

Herpes too was a pretty big deal in the mid 1980s. Like HIV, herpes is now treatable but incurable. That may be changing in the next few years.

Think of all these diseases as practice for the future.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Doyle Rice

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The paint reflects 98.1% of solar radiation while also emitting infrared heat. Because the paint absorbs less heat from the sun than it emits, a surface coated with this paint is cooled below the surrounding temperature without consuming power.

Using this new paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet could result in a cooling power of 10 kilowatts.

Doyle Rice
September 17, 2021
Scientists created the world’s whitest paint. It could eliminate the need for air conditioning.
[Of course it will make the building cooler in the winter as well.

Still, I love living in the future.—Joe]

Of course there is Wi-Fi

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Earlier this evening I finished installing and testing the solar powered Wi-Fi for my gun range:

20210910_194335

I’m paying for 6Mpbs/3Mpbs and SpeedTest.net says this is what I’m getting from a server in Seattle at 9:30 PM and two Wi-Fi hops from my router which is a half mile away:

image

I’m pleased with the result.

Poor passwords

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I work in computer security. The following were recently shared in one of the threat intel channels I follow.

Rather lame, but it’s what Hyatt Hotel prohibits as passwords in their network: https://www.hyattconnect.com/files/passwordpolicy/dictionary.txt

This is claimed to be the largest collection of actual passwords ever assembled.

The download link on the web page given by the link above is very scary (if you can even find it). I downloaded the .gz file, decompressed it, and packaged it up as a .zip file here: https://www.joehuffman.org/misc/RockYou2021.zip

Quote of the day—Edd Gent

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How do old cells in adult humans give rise to the youthful cells found in infants? New research suggests they reset to their lowest biological age in early embryonic development, with potential ramifications for longevity science.

For a long time, it was assumed that germline cells—those that form eggs and sperm and pass a parent’s genetic information on to their children—were essentially ageless. But how this could be was never clear and more recent research had shown that germline cells do accumulate the signs of aging.

This led to the conclusion that there must be some kind of rejuvenation event that allows the offspring’s cells to start with a clean slate. But when and how this occurs was a mystery.

Now a team from Harvard has shown that the age of mouse embryo cells resets about a week into development, representing the “ground zero” of aging. The finding not only provides insight into the fundamental dynamics of aging, but also suggests we might mimic the process in adult cells to rejuvenate aging tissues.

Edd Gent
June 28, 2021
Harvard Scientists Pinpoint ‘Ground Zero’ of Aging in Mouse Embryo Study
[I had often wondered about this. If old age is caused, primarily, by the shortening of telomeres, then how do embryos get normal length telomeres from non-infant parents? I figured that someone must know, it’s such an obvious question. And the obvious follow up question of, “Can we replicate this restoration of telomeres in an organism?” Must have an answer similar to, “No, it only happens during the union of a single sperm and egg.”

That these were unanswered questions has incredible consequences now that answers are being discovered.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lee Reiners

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Crypto enthusiasts call me a Luddite, statist, technophobe or worse. Asset bubbles are maintained by a common narrative, and anyone who dares question it must be attacked. But a growing chorus is pointing out the emperor has no clothes.

Lee Reiners
May 25, 2021
Ban Cryptocurrency to Fight Ransomware
[I’m certainly no fan of cryptocurrency. I might even concede that banning it would put a serious dent in ransomware. But I am very reluctant to advocate a ban on it. Doesn’t the First Amendment protect it?

When I first heard of Bitcoin I was rather enthused about it until I discovered it wasn’t completely anonymous. Anonymous financial transactions are a critical component of a free society. Anonymous financial transactions with anyone in the world who has access to a computer would solve a lot of freedom issues. To the best of my knowledge all anonymous financial transactions still, and will in the foreseeable future, require a physical exchange.

Hence, I am inclined to agree with Reiners:

It isn’t obvious that cryptocurrency provides any benefit at all beyond the chance to make a quick buck. I have been studying the crypto market since its inception, and I have yet to identify a single task or process that crypto makes easier, better, cheaper or faster. Don’t take my word for it. Ask any friend why he owns cryptocurrency, and the answer will invariably be “to make money.” In other words, speculation.

With all the above in mind what I would like to see is the natural death via a loss of faith in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general such that it can’t be used for criminal acts.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Francisco

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Write that down and pin it to the corkboard in your office.
It will turn out to be one of the greatest understatements you will have ever made.

Not that quantum computing will not produce many absolutely amazing positive results, it will, but the view of them will be obscured by all the smoking craters QC causes.

Francisco
May 25, 2021
Comment to Quantum computing as a threat to Bitcoin
[I’m currently of the opinion the positive results will be on par with the smoking craters. But I’m not knowledgable enough on the subject to claim any expertise.

We live in interesting times.—Joe]

Quantum computing as a threat to Bitcoin

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Another threat to Bitcoin. Quantum computing:

Quantum computers and the Bitcoin blockchain

An analysis of the impact quantum computers might have on the Bitcoin blockchain

Regarding the threat from a quantum computer, the public key is directly obtainable from the address. Since all transactions in Bitcoin are public, anyone can obtain the public key from any p2pk address. A quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm could then be used to derive the private key from this address. This would allow an adversary who has a quantum computer to spend the coins that the address had.

Google Aims for Commercial-Grade Quantum Computer by 2029.

A friend who was lured out of early retirement after multiple successful startups claims he has held a million (IIRC) qubit chip in his hand. He told me about this in January of 2020 when he was seeking funding to take it commercial. The last time I talked to him about this COVID had halted his funding quest.

Whether it is Google, IBM, Microsoft, other big names, or any number of startups who want a piece of the pie quantum computing is going shake up a lot of things. Bitcoin, at least as we know it, will probably be an early casualty but it will be far from the only one.