Category: Uncategorized

Modern-day Bletchley Park to tackle terror finance networks

Tags: terrorism

Interesting problem over at Kottke.org with a massive amount of comments discussing it and arguing the case for each side.

Here’s the original problem essentially as it was posed to us: “A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?”

Like Jason I initially thought that of course the plane couldn’t take off but then by rereading the problem I understood what is actually happening and realised that the plane would of course take off.

It’s almost a trick question as it seems to imply that the airplane is caused to remain stationary in respect to the ground and the air by the conveyor belt. If that were the case then it could never take off as it is the negative air pressure above the wing generated by the forward motion through the air that causes the lift.

But in fact the airplane would move forward as the conveyor belt only acts to move the wheels of the plane which are only connected to the plane by an axle which allows them to spin freely. They are nearly frictionless and so only a negligible amount of backward motion is actually transmitted to the plane. So no matter how fast the conveyor belt moves only a fraction of that motion is transmitted to the plane and so there is a net forward motion and as the plane moves forward it will pass through the air and gain lift as usual.

Tags: science

A voluntary scheme is to start operation in Yeovil soon that will seen drinkers submit themselves to fingerprint scans and having their photos taken by pubs and clubs.

Avon and Somerset police have joined forces with the local licensees in an effort to make Yeovil a far safer place to drink.

“The aim is to make the town safer on a night out – violent crime has dropped by 16 per cent in the last year but we aim to reduce this further.

If this were any place but Yeovil I’d think this was an unnecessary step in the fight against anti-social behaviour and alcohol related violence.

As seems to be the case with every biometric based system they have chosen to build a database of innocent individuals in order to keep out the troublemakers. It would be just as effective and less of a security concern if they just stored the data of known troublemakers and scanned everyone who entered but only to check against the blacklist of offenders so that innocent revellers could remain anonymous.

Building a database of everyone is just going to increase the chances of false positives and misidentifying someone as a violent troublemaker when they are not. Plus any database that contains biometric data of thousands of people is going to be a target of identity thieves.

Tags: computer security, biometrics, security

Prime minister Tony Blair says it beggars belief that members of his party would be considering to rebel against the government in the parliamentary vote on anti-terror legislation.

The Guardian: Anti-terror rebels ‘beggar belief’, says Blair

Tony Blair today used the Labour party’s conference platform to attack rebel MPs who plan to derail the government’s anti-terrorism legislation ahead of a raft of key votes due to take place in parliament next week.

Mr Blair attacked dissenters in the party, saying that it “beggars belief” that “some of our own” would try and remove references to glorification of terrorism in the parliamentary bill now making its way through parliament.

“It simply beggars belief that we send such a signal at such a time,” he told delegates. “And I profoundly disagree with the view of those who want to water down the laws against terrorism that these laws infringe our civil liberties. Yes, freedom of speech is an ancient British liberty. But it should be exercised with responsibility because if it isn’t, another ancient liberty – the right to life – is put at risk.”

I wrote briefly about the issue of the opposition to the anti-terror legislation when writing about the jailing of Abu Hamza. Frankly I think it ‘beggars belief’ that a Labour government would be pushing to introduce even more draconian laws than we currently have and infringing people’s civil liberties all in their ‘war on terror’.

This is the role of parliament isn’t it to debate proposed legislation and weigh the benefits against the costs. Is new legislation really necessary? Are we at far greater risk than we were during the height of the IRA’s campaigns of violence?

Tags: politics, terrorism

JG Ballard was right in the future car crashes will be the new porn.

Tags: books, video

The Islamist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been jailed for seven years after he was found guilty of preaching murder as a religious duty.

But oddly the Government saw this as a vindication of their belief that new laws are needed.

Gordon Brown said the sentence showed there would be no tolerance for “preachers of hate”. But he added: “It shows why we need laws against the glorifying of terrorism and why we need to stop extremist Muslim clerics trying to enter the country.”

Now I’m not opposed in principle to the introduction of laws against the glorifying of terrorism but to use a case where someone was convicted under existing laws seems like political opportunism.

The terrorism bill failed not just because the opposition were just trying to defeat the government but because the clauses dealing with glorification of terrorism were ambiguous and badly constructed.

Tags: terrorism

Although it probably took many days to complete construction of this awesome Difference Engine made from Lego.

This Difference Engine was constructed by Andrew Carol and is apparently capable of computing 2nd or 3rd order polynomials to 3 or 4 digits. Charles Babbage’s design for Difference Engine No.2, which was finally constructed by the Science Museum in 1991 as Nineteenth century machining wasn’t quite up to the task, could evaluate 7th order polynomials to 31 digits of accuracy.

Even so Andrew Carol has managed an astounding feat I believe. If only I had the time and blocks to construct one of my very own.

Tags: LEGO

According to the tech new site The Register Government ministers are evading the acknowledgement that British ID cards will include RFID chips.

Home Office Minister Andy Burnham:

There are no plans to use radio frequency identification tags in ID cards… suppliers were asked for their views on the durability and costs of contact, contact-less, dual interface and hybrid cards. This survey concluded that a 10 year life for a contact-less card, incorporating a secure smartcard chip with a radio frequency contactless interface, was feasible.

Got that? So the Home Office isn’t using RFID tags, but is using a “chip with a radio frequency contactless interface”.

A commenter at the NO2ID website writes

Because if you think about it, 3rd party readable RFID-enabled ID Cards are *heaven* for identity thieves…

I couldn’t agree more.

Bruce Schneier has a very detailed analysis of the security of RFID in identity documents.

Tags: computer security, ID cards, security

The nominees for the 2006 Academy Awards have been announced.

As you would expect some films received the nominations they were expecting but there were a few surprises.

The Constant Gardener was pretty much overlooked with only the screenplay and Rachel Weisz receiving nominations.

George Clooney has received multiple nominations both as an actor in Syriana and as the director and writer of Good Night Good Luck.

Biggest surprise to me was the nomination of William Hurt as Best Supporting Actor for A History of Violence. I didn’t believe this when I first heard it because for me the one thing about the movie that made it less than perfect was his performance. I thought he was awful in that role.

Tags: movies

Thanks to Murky.org for the following quote

“The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”
Winston Churchill, Nov 21, 1943

And for reminding me that Pledgebank has another pledge for people who wish to resist the introduction of Identity Cards but cannot directly refuse to register because of professional or family responsibilities.

Tags: politics, totalitarian