WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
Time for some more Winding Down. It’s a bit of a grab bag this week with attention focused on the Olympic games. Despite that, we have for your weekend reading material on Microsoft screwing over its secure boot key, the Australian census shambles, the world’s first, and only, swing aqueduct, a sneaky trick in Visual Studio 2015, a nice wallpaper site, and the International Army Games. Scanner has URLs pointing to Volkswagen hacks, a gene that reboots your cells, a 1,000 core chip that runs on an AA battery, tiny (well relatively tiny) rockets, blockchain bluffing, T-Rays, and hacking Osram’s smart light bulbs.
Shorts:
Have you noticed how hot politicians have recently become on the issues of mandatory ‘backdoor’ encryption keys? There are all sorts of reasons why this stance is, to put it mildly, misguided (we Brits specialise in understatement). However, Microsoft has now provided us with a cast iron example of why it’s unwise.
Microsoft has something called ‘Secure Boot’, which is designed to stop people installing other operating systems on machines that have Windows installed. Secure Boot uses encryption to protect itself from tampering, and, of course Microsoft holds the master key. Unfortunately, a slip up in a version update included one of the master keys. So now it’s possible to ‘turn off’ the protection and install whatever else you want on formerly locked systems, like the ARM-powered Surface tablet.
Like everyone said when these proposals first raised their head, if you have an encryption backdoor key, sooner or later it will get out! Usually sooner, given the value of it.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-secure-boot-key-debacle-causes-security-panic/
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2016/08/10/microsoft_secure_boot_ms16_100/
There’s a major scandal going on over the Australian 2016 Census, which failed completely after a site crash. The Australian Bureau of Statistics claims it was caused by four denial of service attacks. The government claims it was the fault of IBM for not putting in proper protection against denial of service attacks. I haven’t seen anything on the subject from IBM, but The Register asked a number of well-known network security experts, and they say that they haven’t seen any evidence of a denial of service attack...
So who do you believe?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/census-2016-site-falls-to-ddos-attack/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/10/censusfail_aftermath_spooks_briefing_the_
pm_and_ceos_grovelling/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/10/australian_prime_minister_says_ibm_used_
dud_dos_shield_for_failed_online_census/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/10/a_failure_of_planning_dumb_ddos_kneecaps_australian_census/
Homework:
I promised last issue to tell you a little more about some of the marvels of Victorian engineering on the canals of England. But before I do so, you may remember that I posed a question for eager minds to find the answer to. It was: why do the caissons of the Anderton Lift always weigh the same, regardless of whether they have two, one or zero boats in them (and, in fact, regardless of the amount of cargo the boats are carrying). The answer is because the boats always displace their weight in water – which is also the reason why metal boats float. This isn’t the place for an extended explanation of displacement, you can look it up on the net, or if you are still at school, ask your physics teacher to explain it.
On with this issue’s marvel. It’s the Barton Swing Aqueduct. The Bridgewater Canal was the first major commercial canal in England. It ran from the Duke of Bridgewater’s estates to the then burgeoning city of Manchester. It was level (no locks) and had long stretches where it was straight. (Extra factoid: this enabled some of the earliest accurate measurements of the curvature of the Earth.) It opened on 17 July 1761 – over 250 years ago.
All went well until 1887, when the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal, designed to bypass Liverpool Docks and take ships directly into Manchester, was started. The problem was that that the Ship Canal needed to pass under the Bridgewater Canal. Of course, the Ship Canal was built to take ships, not boats, and ships have masts, derricks, funnels and the other sticking up bits. That means there wasn’t room to put in a conventional aqueduct.
So, the solution was the world’s first, and only, swing aqueduct. It’s pivoted on an artificial island in the middle of the Ship Canal. When ships want to go through the canal, plates raise up to cut off the ends of the canal and the ends of aqueduct, and the aqueduct, with the water still in it, swings round until it’s parallel with the line of the Ship Canal. The ship passes through, and the aqueduct swings back to re-join the Bridgewater.
I’ve actually seen it in operation . Some years ago a bunch of us were chugging along in a narrow boat coming up to the aqueduct when the warning signs that it was going to close and swing came up. Revving up the engine we powered across it at top speed (all of 7mph – speed limit on the canals 5mph) and just got across, pulled into the towpath, and all piled out to watch. It was a magnificent sight. As it swung with 800 tons of water in it, some of the water sloshed over the side giving the impression of a moving waterfall!
Think about the implications. That swing aqueduct – 330 feet long, 1,450 tons (1,600 US tons) plus 800 tons of water, has been in operation every day for 120 years! Do you think the device you’re reading this newsletter on will last even a tenth of that time?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton_Swing_Aqueduct
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/28/geeks_guide_barton_aqueduct/
http://www.bridgewatercanal.co.uk/history/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Ship_Canal
Geek Stuff:
Calling all Windows C/C++ programming geeks. If you are using Visual Studio 2015, Microsoft has slipped in some library telemetry functions that get linked in to your application and send back user info to Microsoft. Having been caught at it they seem to be going to take it out. But in the meantime the stuff at the URLs tells you how to prevent it being linked in the first place.
http://imgur.com/TiVrXyf
https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/4ibauu/visual_studio_adding_telemetry_function_calls_to/
Pictures:
One of the best sources of pictures for your computer’s wallpaper is hdwallsource.com. It has pictures on a vast array of topics from food and drink to phones! Here, to get you started, is the URL to the Space section.
http://hdwallsource.com/category/space
This one is for the boys, of all ages and sexes (so to speak), among you. It’s especially for those bored with the coverage of the Olympic games in Rio. It’s a set of pictures of the International Army Games, which Russia is hosting for the second time. Tanks, jet planes, amphibious assaults. You name it, they’ve got it, and it makes for some pretty spectacular pictures. Any one for Aviation Darts? Definitely toys for the boys!
http://news.sky.com/story/russia-gripped-by-international-army-games-10534385
Scanner:
Thieves can wirelessly unlock up to 100 million Volkswagens, each at the press of a button
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/11/car_lock_hack/
Gene “reboots” stem cells to slow or reverse the aging process
http://newatlas.com/nanog-reverse-aging/44544/
Meet the 1,000 core chip that can be powered by an AA battery
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/20/1000_core_processor_kilocore_in_america/
The next big thing in space business is tiny rockets
http://qz.com/747513/the-next-big-thing-in-space-business-is-tiny-rockets/
Failing projects pray blockchain works as ‘magic middleware’
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2016/07/26/failing_projects_pray_blockchain_
works_as_magic_middleware/
Is the world ready for T-rays?
http://ideas.ted.com/is-the-world-ready-for-t-rays/
Osram’s smart bulbs blow a security fuse – isn’t anything code audited anymore?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/27/osram_smart_lightbulbs/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
14 August 2016
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
