How to cyber defeat an enemy?

Don't touch that flash drive—you have no idea where it's been.

This Slate article starts:

If you found a pretty little USB stick on the ground, would you plug it in to see what’s there? No? OK, what do you think your parents, neighbors, and co-workers would do?

When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ran a similar test in 2011, they discovered that 60 percent of those who found flash drives planted outside of government and contractor buildings plugged them right into their networked computers. Even worse, when the drives were outfitted with an official logo, the number jumped to 90 percent.

Well, maybe those people weren’t properly trained in cyber security, you might say. (Insert joke about incompetent government workers.) Alas, a recent study divulged that 78 percent of IT security professionals confessed to experimenting with unidentified flash drives. Of those surveyed, more than 68 percent had been personally responsible for a security breach at work or home, often as a result of the orphaned drives.

Gee.  Sounds like all you need to do to cyber defeat an enemy is to have agents with sacks full of virus infected USB drives discretely dropping them around government buildings.   And just around the neighbourhood generally, perhaps.

Or maybe you could use a drone to disperse them from the air....

Infrastructure confusion

Infrastructure: No longer a no-brainer | Club Troppo

Yesterday I was quoting Tim Colebatch saying Australia's level of infrastructure spending had long been too low; now someone is arguing our spending is now too high.

No wonder I find this topic confusing.

All I know is that, given the amount of money on tents both sides of politics seem to be intent on spending, my idea of a yurt led recovery no longer seems implausible.

Life in the bridge

I've always wanted to see what the residences inside the Indooroopilly Bridge looked like, and now it seems I will have a chance....

Germs recommended

I seem to have missed a 2011 story about this: Social amoebae travel with a posse, have amazingly complicated social lives

More detail: 

...scientists had discovered a single-celled organism that is a primitive farmer. The organism, a social amoeba called Dictyostelium discoideum, picks up edible bacteria, carries them to new locations and harvests them like crops.

And last night on SBS, the documentary "Pain, Pus and Poison" about how a treatment for syphilis was found, as well as the interesting story of how penicillin was rushed into production in World War II was great, if often gory, viewing.

Slate must be trolling for comments

Kids and dogs: If you’re having a baby, do not get a puppy. - Slate Magazine

Last week, it was inviting a flame war between Apple and Android users (that was kinda fun to read, actually.)  This week, it's an odd column by a women who says you shouldn't get a dog if you want kids, because you'll completely ignore the former when you have the latter.  Actually, both she, and her dog, sound a tad neurotic.

Never mind that billions of Earthlings find dogs and little kids make for a happy household. (Probably a healthier one too.)

Trolling for comments is the only explanation.

Infrastructure talk

Build it, and a stronger economy will follow

Well, that's interesting.  Tim Colebatch talks up infrastructure, and says that spending on it has been too low for about 30 years now.   He also notes that although the Coalition claims that they will make cost benefit analysis of projects a priority, they are already announcing funding for things which probably wouldn't pass that criteria.

But the column also makes mention of things which raise my doubts about how valid cost benefit analysis can sometimes be.  For example, cities used to be very keen on building urban railway lines well before there were people living along them.  Sure, everyone benefits from that maybe 80 years later, but you can't model that well at the time you're building it, can you?

Funnily enough, I see that Henry Ergas is said to have expertise at infrastructure economics.  I wouldn't trust him to have a valid opinion on things like my plan for a yurt led recovery for the Australian economy.*

*  A joke, Joyce.  Yurts aren't "infrastructure".

Just back from Rio, I guess

Sorry, the latest app on the tablet continues to amuse me with its easy method of mild ridicule.  

  

Update: A message across the innerwebs: IT: she seems very resistant to the charms of this blog. How far do I have to go in photoshopping type stuff to get her to visit?

A fan speaks...

An awful lot of claims without explanation

Henry Ergas' latest column in The Australian seems especially full of figures and claims (all about how disastrous Labor policies are) with no explanation or justification.

Maybe he thinks his Right wing fan club follows him enough to remember previous columns where he did explain figures?  In any event, this is a terrible way to write a column.  

Jason Soon, I think, used to hold him in high regard.  I wonder if he still does...

Global warming and floods, continued

Atmospheric Rivers Grow, Causing Worse Floods Ahead | Climate Central

For some parts of the world, "atmospheric rivers" carrying large amounts of water within narrow bands, are likely to get worse under AGW. 

Interesting.

How odd

Harvard scientists say coffee ‘could halve risk of suicide’ - Science - News - The Independent

Don't overdo it, though:

Coffee has in the past been shown to reduce the risk of depression in women, and it also stimulates the central nervous system.

This was the first effort to observe the link between caffeine and incidents of suicide, of which there were 277 among the participants.

Despite the results, researchers advised against people drastically changing their drinking habits in order to self-medicate.

They observed throughout that most people naturally adapt their use of coffee to levels that feel right for them, and added that while the sample size of those who drank large quantities (six cups of more) was too small to make for significant findings, a major Finnish study showed a higher risk of suicide among people drinking eight or nine cups per day.

“Overall, our results suggest that there is little further benefit for consumption above 2-3 cups/day or 400 mg of caffeine/day,” the authors wrote.

Monday physics and philosophy

Bee at Backreaction has a couple of good posts up recently, one about theorising about how stable the photon may be (the short answer - very, very stable), and another lengthier one about free will and not worrying about not having it.

I haven't had time to go through the free will one in detail (and the long list of comments, which will no doubt contain some interesting material) but hope to soon.

Amazing re-writes of history

I have been utterly gobsmacked to read a couple of the "regulars" in comments at Catallaxy in the last few weeks promoting the idea that the Rudd government's ending of the "Pacific Solution" following its election in 2007 was not an election policy.

This highly creative (by which I mean, imagined) meme then gets the occasional comment of support "well, someone should be calling out Rudd as a liar then, when he now says his changes in 2008 were simply putting an elective mandate into effect."

I have seen exactly one person challenge it with anything resembling a reference to evidence - someone saying that they remembered a Kerry O'Brien interview where Rudd said he would close down Nauru.

That is correct.   Here is the section of the interview in question, held only a couple of days before the election:

KERRY O'BRIEN: On refugee policy, Mr Rudd, there are 82 Sri Lankans and seven Burmese being held on Nauru as we speak, part of Mr Howard's Pacific Solution. If you win on Saturday, how quickly will you move to shut down the Nauru and Manus Island options and where would the detainees go?

KEVIN RUDD: We haven't taken advice on that. What we have said that for us, we have an appropriate offshore detention facility, though it's part of Australia on Christmas Island. Christmas Island, I understand, has the capacity of some 800 beds. The so-called Pacific Solution has cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars. Why not use Christmas Island instead? It strikes me as pretty well self-evident.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But how quickly would you move to close down the Manus Island and Nauru option?

KEVIN RUDD: Not privy to the specific contractual and administrative arrangements which were associated with each of those deals...

KERRY O'BRIEN: But I think it's policy. I think Mr Burke your shadow Minister says you will.

KEVIN RUDD: It's policy. We will but your question was how soon.

KERRY O'BRIEN: I think his statement is that you would do it immediately.

KEVIN RUDD: That's true.

KERRY O'BRIEN: And I am asking in terms of your immediate priorities in government, your immediate priorities, will you move as an immediate priority to deal with that?

KEVIN RUDD: At a very early stage. The Pacific Solution is just wrong. It's a waste of taxpayers' money. It's not the right way to in fact handle asylum seekers or others and therefore we think the best way ahead is to use Christmas Island instead. It's a facility which is part of the Commonwealth of Australia. The other thing is this. You think I'm somehow quibbling about this. If you're a responsible alternative government you need to actually look at the advice entirely in its detail on whatever contractual arrangements now exist with those...

 For a broader context, there is this:

On 24 November 2007, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) won the federal election, defeating the Coalition Government which had been in power for nearly twelve years. Kevin Rudd was sworn in as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister on 3 December 2007. The ALP National Platform, which was formally adopted in April 2007, represented the party’s ‘long-term aspirations for Australia’.[2] In relation to immigration, the ALP ambitiously resolved to implement significant changes for asylum seekers and refugees if elected. Most notably, to end the so-called ‘Pacific Solution’; to give permanent, not temporary, protection to all refugees; to limit the detention of asylum seekers for the purposes of conducting initial health, identity and security checks; to subject the length and conditions of detention to review; to vest management of detention centres with the public sector; to retain the excision of Christmas Island, Cocos Islands and Ashmore Reef; and to create a new Refugee Determination Tribunal.[3] In the area of refugee policy the key themes of the platform were ‘humanity, fairness, integrity and public confidence’.[4] 

Reflecting on the Government’s first year in power, the then Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Evans, noted ‘Labor was elected on a platform of change’.[5] One of the first things the newly elected Labor Government did upon taking office was to stop processing asylum claims in the small Pacific Island State of Nauru—which the then Minister described as a ‘shameful and wasteful chapter in Australia’s immigration history’.[6] However, in retaining the former Coalition Government’s excision policy (which removes the right of asylum seekers to apply for a visa) and use of its purpose built immigration reception and processing centre on Christmas Island, the Government attracted criticism from refugee advocacy groups and academics alike—Adjunct Professor Michael White being  of the view that Labor’s new approach ‘did not fundamentally alter Australia’s previous immigration policy and many features of the Pacific Solution remained’.[7]

I find it inconceivable that adults with an alleged interest in politics such that they spend hours every week commenting at a political blog could have convinced themselves that this history from all of, oh, 6 years ago does not exist.

And, as I say, that so few readers at the blog would actually try to correct them.

But then, it is a blog full of AGW conspiracists and deniers. 

At least I give credit to a handful there who see the parallels between the last US presidential election and what is happening now.   Because it is shaping up that way:   a large slab of the Right here is viewing many issues as part of a cultural war of their own desiring.   They have positioned themselves as the darlings of the older end of the electorate, and are making little connection with anyone under about 35.

There's still time for Rudd to blow his credibility out of the water, and a lot will depend on revised Treasury figures as to the budget position; but at the moment, I think a Labor win is looking quite on the cards.

Update:  I forgot to mention last night that even Tim Blair, who one imagines Catallaxy readers visit regularly, was talking only 4 days ago about how Tony Burke was writing before the 2007 election about how Labor would close down the Pacific island off shore processing centres.  

And besides which, when they were closed, there was absolutely no media outrage that it was unexpected.

It was completely expected.  

Get your act together, ABC

I feel like a general bleat, even though I have said it before:  the ABC News website is just awful design for a news site, with its minimal number of "headline" stories and the need to "drill down" to find a more extensive list of stories.

This is rubbish for a well funded news organisation.

As far as I am concerned, a news website should maximise on the front page the number of direct links to stories:   the layout of The Guardian runs rings around the ABC site, with its multiple links to further detail on major stories, as do the Fairfax sites.  I would even say that The Australian (God forbid) is substantially better than the ABC layout (if you ignore the paywalling, at least.)

BBC News has a touch of the ABC's about it, but is still more information heavy on its front page than the latter.

I can't be the only person who finds this ABC News web design crappy, surely?  

Yet another article on bloated Hollywood

Steven Spielberg Hollywood imploding: How he predicted a disastrous summer at the box office. - Slate Magazine

A balance article here that puts a bit of perspective on the current failed big budget movies of this American summer:

In an interview with New York magazine critic David Edelstein, producer Lynda Obst also pins the current trend toward gigantism on the increased importance of the foreign market, coupled with a collapse in DVD sales, which once provided a safety net for midrange pictures that didn't pan out. Obst's new book Sleepless in Hollywood features a list of movies she's certain wouldn't get made today, including such Oscar winners as Moonstruck and Forrest Gump.

‪It’s not the first time Hollywood has succumbed to the allure of bloat. Film historian David Bordwell points to the expensive musicals that followed in the wake of The Sound of Music. “The industry had pinned its hopes on films like Dr. Dolittle, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Star!, and Darling Lili,” Bordwell emails. “They were the ‘tent-poles’ of their time, and they mostly failed. There were also the super-sized comedy spoofs like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Great Race, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, all of which remind me a bit of The Lone Ranger’s elephantiasis.” Still, Bordwell adds, “the flopolas here weren’t happening in such a compressed time span, as we’re finding this summer.”

 Update:  by the way, both Moonstruck and Forrest Gump were fantastically over-rated films, in my opinion. It's unfortunate that they are given as examples of films not being made now.

Lose weight, become a jerk

The post heading is inspired by, and describes, the recent history of Joe Hockey.  Here he is quoted today:

But shadow treasurer Joe Hockey told The Australian Financial Review the process was becoming a sham and the Coalition would no longer respect the figures in either the economic ­statement or PEFO.

Previously, he promised to release detailed costings of Coalition policies only when PEFO was released. Now, he said, that pledge may no longer hold.

“We’re not going to cop the Treasury being bullied by the government into producing PEFO numbers that are closely aligned to the government’s,” he said.

“If PEFO looms the same as the economic statement, then PEFO won’t be worth the paper its written on.”

The problem, as I understand it, is to do with revenue.  The Coalition will promise to "fix" it by big spending cuts.    In fact, the lower dollar will soon start to help the economy anyway.  

Hockey seems to believe that Treasury wants to bend over backwards to accommodate just one side of politics; so much so that they will fudge figures for Labor.   That is, surely, an enormous slur on public servants, and if Hockey (if Treasurer) oversees a clean out of Treasury, is it going to be staffed with Right wing twits who support this "Treasury is too politicised" guff?   Why not put Judith Sloan in and be done with?

Hopefully, it was a good false memory...

False memory planted in mouse's brain | Science | The Guardian

No, reading the article, it was a fear memory.

(By the way, I associated "engram" with Scientology, but apparently it has a legitimate science use too.)

Gravity 2

I put up the first Gravity trailer, and now the second one is also making a big splash around the Web.  It looks fantastic, especially if you watch it full screen:



The only thing I don't get:  if the movie is about two astronauts who get marooned in space in the first act, how does it make their plight interesting for the next two acts?

A place unknown

No Man's Land an Abandoned Sea Fort, Soon Accepting Bookings

I don't recall hearing about this place, which looks entirely suited to be a Bond movie setting, before.   

No inflation woes, still

Inflation figures expose carbon scare campaign

Tim Colebatch feels vindicated:

Some wrecking ball that was! Australia's first year with a carbon tax has ended with inflation so low that it was only the carbon tax that kept inflation from falling out of the Reserve Bank's target range.

The Bureau of Statistics reports that in the year to June, consumer prices rose 2.4 per cent on the raw data, 2.3 per cent after seasonal adjustment, and 2.2 per cent on the trimmed mean measure, which strips out the biggest price rises and falls to define underlying inflation.

If you take out the September quarter - as the next set of inflation figures will - then inflation over the nine months to June was running at an annualised rate of just 1.3 per cent. Underlying inflation is tracking at 2 per cent.

And while the dollar has fallen in the past three months and petrol prices have jumped, it's odds-on that the next measure of inflation will start with a 1.

That is low inflation by any measure. It shows the Coalition's scare campaign against the carbon tax was just a scare campaign.

What were other right wing figures saying about the carbon "tax" and inflation?

Well, a retiring RBA board member and businessman at the start of 2012 was worried, and told The Australian (who else):

... Mr Kraehe said the introduction of the carbon tax, rising wages in the resource sector and a weaker Australian dollar could all combine to put upward pressure on inflation in the year ahead. While interest rates were currently "ideally positioned" at 4.25 per cent, Mr Kraehe said inflation was set to become "more of an issue".

And look, guess which paper (hint:  after "The", it starts with an "A") ran this opinion piece from the anonymous (but leading independent economist, apparently) "Henry Thornton":

A tax of $23 a tonne for the CO2 emissions of Australia's 500 greatest polluters will severely handicap Australia's most productive industries. Production, jobs and emissions will be shifted offshore to countries and competitor producers less concerned than the Australian government about the supposed costs of greenhouse gas emissions.

This is action guaranteed to reduce the productivity of Australian industry, increasing the strength of the stagflationary forces already evident.

 Stagflation!  Well who does that remind me of?   Yes, he was having a gripe in October last year:

 Government (and Treasury?) would like us to believe that the carbon tax is on track, the modelling all fine, and concerns about utility prices overblown.

 And here he is, complaining that the ABS was not going to try to differentiate the contribution of the carbon price to inflation.

When overall inflation is so well in the range, what would be the point?