WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
Happy new year, everyone. I was hoping to only put nice news in the first issue of the year, but Intel put the kybosh on that idea. So... We start with the Intel chip shambles, and then move onto some more bad news for Uber, an interesting moon, how you get your eye colouring, Microsoft’s Kinnect, some rather nice astronomy pictures, and a quote about bandaging airships! URLs point to articles about 3D printing, a large battery, security costs in 2018, the true cost of cryptocurrencies, 1.4 billion personal credentials discovered on the dark web, and age related memory loss discoveries.
So, let’s get started...
Shorts:
We start the new year with a major security problem – Meltdown and Spectre, aka the Intelpocalypse. Before I go on to explain what the problem is, there is some important info for my Windows readers: Microsoft have issued a patch to mitigate Meltdown, but it makes changes to the memory layout in Windows. If you try to install the patch with a version of an anti-virus software that is unaware of the patch, it will brick your computer. There won’t be a problem if you leave things alone and let the patch installer do a software check and make the decision. It can tell if it’s OK to install, and if it’s not it will wait off. In the meantime, don’t try and install the patch manually. Just this once, leave it to Microsoft... You have been warned!
OK. So what’s the problem? Bottom line is that virtually all Intel processors since the 1990s, and also some others, contain chip design flaws that compromise the security of devices using these chips. Intel have known about this for the last six months, and have kept their mouths shut, until The Register outed it on January 2.
The reason the bugs are so serious is that between them they cause two security problems, the aforementioned Meltdown and Spectre. The patches coming from operating system vendors will fix Meltdown, but at a cost in speed (anything up to around 30% slower), but as far as we can tell, at the moment there is no fix for the Spectre bug, except removing your processor, or processors, and replacing them with a non-bugged version. And remember this affects all of them since the 1990s.
The whole mess is a result of the fierce competition on the processor chip market over the last 20 years. In order to speed up the processor chips once they reached the then technical limits of increasing raw speed, the vendors opted for a variety of methods, the best known of which is to keep the speed lower and put more than one processor on each chip. Once everyone was doing this they looked for other tricks that would speed things up, and that is what caused the problems.
It was my intention to write in Winding Down a lay person’s guide to what’s gone wrong, but it would take up the rest of the space in this issue, so as soon as it’s ready I will put it on the ibgames web site, and we will send all the subscribers the URL. In the meantime, as far as I can tell Android phones are OK as far as Meltdown is concerned, and patches are available for Windows and Linux. I think Apple already are patching their products, but I’m not an Apple user, so I’m not exactly sure. If you have an Apple device, check your usual channels for information.
Intel issued a belated press release after The Register had blown the gaff on the problems. You can read The Register’s translation of it from company speak into real English in the first URL.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/04/intel_meltdown_spectre_bugs_the_registers_annotations/
https://www.darkreading.com/informationweek-home/vendors-rush-to-issue-security-updates-for-meltdown-spectre-flaws/d/d-id/1330753
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/184wcDt9I9TUNFFbsAVLpzAtckQxYiuirADzf3cL42FQ/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/04/microsoft_windows_patch_meltdown/
Yet more bad news for Uber. Just before Christmas the EU’s highest court ruled that Uber was indeed in the transportation business, not a software platform. Uber have always maintained that they were not a taxi business but a platform for connecting drivers with those needing a ride. This is quite a blow for Uber, since the taxi business is much more tightly regulated than any software platform.
Here in London the regulatory body, Transport for London (TfL) has already withdrawn their license because of failures to properly vet drivers before accepting them. Uber are only still on the road here because they are waiting for an appeal against the removal to be heard, but given all the other things about Uber coming out, it seems unlikely that the appeal will succeed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/business/uber-europe-ecj.html
Homework:
Here’s a little something for your diary, assuming you don’t live in Western Europe... Later this month we are about to be treated to a view of the moon as a red supermoon, which is also a blue moon. That hasn’t happened for 150 years. OK, let’s break is down. The red moon is caused by a total lunar eclipse. That happens when the Earth is between the moon and the sun. When that happens the light from the sun is scattered by the Earth’s atmosphere, passing more of the red light than the other parts of the spectrum, thus the moon appears red.
It’s a supermoon because the moon is also at its closest to the Earth. As a result it looks noticeably larger than usual. So, that accounts for the red and the super, what about the blue? Well, this is one of those rare months where there are two full moons in the same month. We already had the first (which was also a supermoon) on January 1. By ancient folk tradition the second full moon in a single month is known as a blue moon. Now you know where the phrase ‘Once in a blue moon...’ comes from.
So there you have it – a red supermoon which is also blue! Last seen on 31 March 1866, and due again on 31 January 2018. Sadly, as is normally the case, the eclipse won’t be viewable from everywhere on the Earth, even if the weather cooperates. Western Europe, large chunks of Africa and most of South America are out of luck. If you want to check, there is a map in the article pointed to by the URL. Happy viewing if you are in the right place to see it.
http://www.sciencealert.com/rare-moon-lunar-eclipse-first-time-in-150-years
Medium has a nice article by Paul Van Slembrouck about how different coloured eyes are physically made up. I’m talking about the iris of the eye here, not the rest of it. Fascinating stuff. Recommended.
https://medium.com/@ptvan/structural-eye-color-is-amazing-24f47723bf9a
Geek Stuff:
Bad news if you’ve been developing programs for Microsoft’s Kinnect 3D sensor. Microsoft appear to be in the process of abandoning it. True, it was a bit of a niche peripheral, but it wasn’t all that bad – we had one at the last place I worked, and it definitely showed potential. What will happen to it when Microsoft finally gives it the chop, I don’t know, maybe someone else will pick it up.
http://www.i-programmer.info/news/194-kinect/11255-microsoft-kills-the-kinect.html
Pictures:
Here are a bunch of nice, but very different pictures from NASA’s Apod site:
Carina over Lake Ballard
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180105.html
The Horsehead Nebula
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171227.html
Fireball in the Arctic
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171225.html
Grand Spiral Galaxy NGC 1232
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171226.html
Coda:
This week we have a quote showing what happens when you get your clauses in in the wrong place in the English language!
‘... they’d carted him across the Atlantic Ocean in an airship wrapped up in gauze bandages and disguised as a patient recovering from a facelift.’ (Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood, 2009) [reported in Thog’s Master Class: Ansible 336 http://news.ansible.uk/a366.html ]
Scanner:
Laser holograms create 3D-printed objects in seconds, no layering required
https://newatlas.com/volumetric-3d-printing-laser/52546/
Elon Musk’s South Australian Battery responded in just 140 milliseconds after a coal-fired power plant failed
http://www.sciencealert.com/elon-musk-s-south-australian-battery-responded-in-just-140-milliseconds-after-a-coal-fired-power-plant-failed
Gartner: IT security spending to reach $96 billion in 2018 [And that was before Meltdown and Spectre became known – AL]
https://www.darkreading.com/operations/gartner-it-security-spending-to-reach-$96-billion-in-2018/d/d-id/1330596
Bitcoin uses more power than Serbia – the environmental cost of cryptocurrencies
https://newatlas.com/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-power-consumption/52556/
Archive of 1.4 BILLION credentials in clear text found in dark web archive
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/12/1_point_4_billion_credentials_in_clear_text_in_dark_web_archive/
Could synching up sleep brainwaves combat age-related memory loss?
https://newatlas.com/age-related-memory-loss-sleep-brainwave-synchronization/52694/
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
7 January 2018
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.
