Quotulatiousness

December 7, 2018

Australian parliament votes to weaken encryption

Filed under: Australia, Government, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Scott Shackford reports on the latest bit of oddness from the southern hemisphere:

Pretty much every single person in the tech industry, human rights circles, and academia warned the Australian government that forcing online platforms to weaken encryption would lead to disastrous results. Nonetheless, lawmakers are pushing forward — and it’s not just Australians who will suffer as a result.

Last night, Australia’s parliament rushed through the Assistance and Access Bill of 2018 right as their session was coming to a close. The bill gives various government agencies the authority to demand that tech and communication platforms provide them secret bypass routes around encrypted messages.

This is what is known as an encryption “backdoor,” and it’s a bad idea. Governments insist such tools are needed to fight crime and terrorism. The problem is that an encryption backdoor doesn’t care who uses it: If there’s a mechanism to bypass privacy security on a communication system, it can be exploited by anybody who knows how. That includes hackers, thieves, officials from authoritarian governments, and all sorts of dangerous people (including, of course, the very government people who insist they’re trying to protect us). That’s why tech companies have spent years fighting against the idea.

Weak encryption is a threat to the health of any tech platform that involves transferring data, and governments know that. So they insist they’re not demanding encryption backdoors while attempting to enact policies that pretty much demand them.

The Assistance and Access Bill won’t just grant the Australian government the power to demand that everybody from Facebook to Whatsapp help them bypass security to access private communications. The bill will let officials order companies, through “technical capability notices,” to alter their programming to facilitate snooping. And it gives the government the authority to force the tech employees who implement the changes to keep them secret. Break that secrecy, and the employees can face up to five years in jail.

December 6, 2018

FAL Paratrooper 50.63

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 16 Nov 2018

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/fal-…

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

FN introduced the paratrooper folding-stock version of the FAL rifle in the early 1960s, and it became a very popular addition to their rifle line. Since the recoil spring on the standard pattern FAL runs down the length of the buttstock, fitting a side folding stock required a redesign to the internal parts, moving the recoil spring in front go the bolt, inside the top cover. For this reason, standard and paratrooper lower receivers, top covers, springs, and bolt carriers are not interchangeable. In addition to those changes, FN developed the folding charging handle for these rifles and shortened their barrels to approximately 17 3/8 inches. The standard muzzle brake was used, and the standard handguards and folding bipod also fitted. The rear sight was fixed, with just a single 250m aperture.

A batch of 1,375 of semiauto Para FAL rifles was imported into the US before the various bans on military style rifles were instituted, and this is one of them – an all-original FN made Para!

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

December 3, 2018

The Mini-14: A Cost-Effective Scaled-Down M14

Filed under: Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 10 Nov 2018

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/the-…

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

The Ruger Mini-14 is certainly not a “forgotten” weapon, but I think there are some valuable insights to be taken from it. As a company, Ruger has an outstanding track record of making not flashy and exciting guns, but rather guns that are economical and dependable. The Mini-14 is an excellent example of that, with hundreds of thousands sold since its introduction in 1972. So today we will take a look at how Jim Sullivan simplified the M14 design when he scaled it down to 5.56mm for Ruger, and how the company used its investment casting expertise to further reduce production costs.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

December 2, 2018

QotD: There’s investment and then there’s “public investment”

Filed under: Government, Quotations, Science, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

In 2003, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development published a paper on the ‘sources of economic growth in OECD countries’ between 1971 and 1998 and found, to its surprise, that whereas privately funded research and development stimulated economic growth, publicly funded research had no economic impact whatsoever. None. This earthshaking result has never been challenged or debunked. It is so inconvenient to the argument that science needs public funding that it is ignored.

Matt Ridley, “The Myth of Basic Science: Does scientific research drive innovation? Not very often, argues Matt Ridley: Technological evolution has a momentum of its own, and it has little to do with the abstractions of the lab”, Wall Street Journal, 2015-10-23.

December 1, 2018

California Arms Co 20ga “Defiance” Pistol-Shotgun

Filed under: History, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 9 Nov 2018

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/cali…

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Made to compete with guns like the Ithaca Auto & Burglar, the “Defiance” form the California Arms Company is a side-by-side double barreled 20 gauge pistol. Only about 300 were made in the late 1920s – note that this was before the NFA introduced regulation of short barreled shotguns. Unlike the Ithaca and most other guns of this type, the Defiance is not simply a standard side-by-side shotgun cut down in length. Instead, it uses a cast aluminum grip assembly with two manually cocked strikers (and storage for two spare shells in the grip) and a barrel assembly with an integrated aluminum fore-end. The Defiance is nothing if not robust, despite perhaps being a bit slower to use than an Ithaca. Interestingly, the marketing for the Defiance also included a strong focus on the use of tear gas ammunition in addition to standard buckshot – the Lake Erie Chemical Company developed a 20ga tear gas cartridge in partnership with the California Arms Company. It was almost certainly too small to really be effective, though, and was not able to induce enough sales to keep the Defiance on the market long.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

November 29, 2018

The Royal Navy’s “Nelsol” and “Rodnol” – a battleship design driven by lessons from Jutland

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Technology, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

One of my favourite quirky ship designs is profiled at Naval Gazing: HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney. These two ships, known derisively by the names “Nelsol” and “Rodnol” (because of their odd profile resemblance to a class of RN oilers, whose names all ended in “-ol”), were the first post-WW1 British battleships designed to incorporate the bitter lessons learned at the battle of Jutland in 1916. Their construction was also influenced by the round of naval treaty talks that aimed to stop a renewed naval arms race and limit the major navies in both number and size of ships.

HMS Nelson profile drawing as she appeared circa 1931.
Image by Emoscopes via Wikimedia Commons.

At the end of WWI, the Royal Navy faced a crisis. During the war, it had suspended new capital ship construction except for a handful of battlecruisers, while the American and Japanese building programs had continued to churn out ships that were more modern than the bulk of the British fleet. Worse, the British battlefleet had seen hard war service, and many of the early dreadnoughts were in bad shape and essentially unfit for further service. New battleships would be needed, ships that fully reflected the lessons of the war.

HMS Nelson off Spithead for the 1937 Fleet Review. Anchored in the background are two Queen Elizabeth-class battleships and two cruisers of the London class.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

The most important of these was the need for an all-or-nothing armor scheme, as developed in the US. The war had seen major improvements in armor-piercing shells, and they required significantly more armor than previous vessels. However, the increased range gave designers a way out. Previously, the size of citadels had been set by the need to preserve stability and buoyancy if the ends were riddled. At long range, the many hits necessary to riddle the ends would not happen, and the citadel could be shrunk to thicken the armor. The British also looked to improve on the 15″ gun due to the proliferation of 16″ weapons in the American and Japanese navies. They investigated the triple turret, abandoned a decade earlier amid fears of increased mechanical complexity, and the 18″ gun under the cover name of 15″/B.

Two parallel design series were started, one for battleships, the other for battlecruisers. As this series was developed, the designers saw a serious problem with the battlecruisers. The boiler uptakes would leave large holes in the armored deck, and if the ship was headed towards the enemy, shells might be able to pass through the holes and into the aft magazines. The solution was to move all three turrets forward of the engines, on the basis of war experience showing that ships rarely if ever engaged targets directly aft.

November 17, 2018

Introducing the Bandsaw | Paul Sellers

Filed under: Technology, Tools, Woodworking — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Paul Sellers
Published on 16 Nov 2018

Paul introduces the bandsaw as an extra tool to free up time and energy to focus on hand tool woodworking. He goes over the uses of a bandsaw and the features that he looks for when acquiring one.

For more information on these topics, see https://paulsellers.com or https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com

From the YouTube comments section for this video:

    csandlund1
    2 hours ago

    It’s like watching the Pope do a video on the joys of sex. Fascinating, but completely unexpected.

November 15, 2018

Colt Model 639: MACVSOG’s Vietnam Carbine

Filed under: Asia, History, Military, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 24 Oct 2018

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/colt-…

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

The Colt Model 639 was the export version of the Colt Model 629, which was type classified by the US military as the XM177E2 and issued to MACVSOG special operations units in 1967 and 1968. Improved from the Model 609 carbine, the 629/639 has an 11.5 inch barrel and an interesting small muzzle device (“moderator”) which served to change the signature of its firing to sound much more like an AK-type rifle than an M16. The device does that job well – at least until it had been fired extensively, which slowly fills up the (non-disassemblable) unit with carbon and powder residue, substantially reducing its effectiveness. It has a full-fence lower, standard carbine buffer and spring, and a two position aluminum collapsing stock. It is the iconic weapon of US special forces in Vietnam.

Only about 100 of the Model 639 were made in the early 1970s, and many of those were sent back to Colt in 1975 under a recall. At that time, the ATF decided to classify the muzzle device as a silencer, prompting Colt to recall the guns and remove and destroy the devices. Some owners, however, kept their carbines and instead registered the muzzle devices, allowing them legally remain on the guns.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

November 10, 2018

Don’t expect the “Internet-of-Things” to get better security without Uncle Sam’s pressure

Filed under: Business, Government, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Bruce Schneier believes it will take government action (or as The Register phrased it, “Uncle Sam … putting boots to asses”) to get any significant improvement in Internet-of-Shit device security:

Any sort of lasting security standard in IoT devices may only happen if governments start doling out stiff penalties.

So said author and computer security guru Bruce Schneier, who argued during a panel discussion at the Aspen Cyber Summit this week that without regulation, there is little hope the companies hooking their products up to the internet will implement proper security protections.

“Looking at every other industry, we don’t get security unless it is done by the government,” Schneier said.

“I challenge you to find an industry in the last 100 years that has improved security without being told [to do so] by the government.”

Schneier went on to point out that, as it stands, companies have little reason to implement safeguards into their products, while consumers aren’t interested in reading up about appliance vendors’ security policies.

“I don’t think it is going to be the market,” Schneier argued. “I don’t think people are going to say I’m going to choose my refrigerator based on the number of unwanted features that are in the device.”

Schneier is not alone in his assessment either. Fellow panellist Johnson & Johnson CISO Marene Allison noted that manufacturers have nothing akin to a bill of materials for their IP stacks, so even if customers want to know how their products and data are secured, they’re left in the dark.

“Most of the stuff out there, even as a security professional, I have to ask myself, what do they mean?” Allison said.

November 5, 2018

French Tanks of World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special

Filed under: France, History, Military, Technology, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published on 3 Nov 2018

Check Out Supremacy 1914: https://www.supremacy1914.com/index.p…

French tank development started almost simoultaneously with the British. The French tanks were very different in design based on a different understanding of the role of the tank on the battlefield. Arguably, the first modern tank, the Renault FT was a result of this development.

November 3, 2018

Shooting the M14: Full Auto Really Uncontrollable?

Filed under: History, Military, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 13 Oct 2018

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/shoo…

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Today we are out shooting the H&R M14 “Guerrilla Gun” prototype, but fitted with a standard M14 stock and barrel. With these parts, it handles and fires exactly like a standard M14 – so I can answer the most pertinent question:

Is the M14 really so uncontrollable in full auto?

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

October 30, 2018

RE: Bren vs Spandau – which was better? @Lindybeige

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Military, Technology, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Military History Visualized
Published on 17 May 2016

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mhv

Response video, it was necessary, I like Lindybeige, but his latest video “Bren vs Spandau – which was better?” had too many errors. So here is my response to his video.

Original video posted here (and follow-up video here).

October 28, 2018

Panzerschreck: Germany Makes a Bazooka

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Technology, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 10 Oct 2018

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/panze…

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

The German military first encountered American Bazookas in Tunisia in 1943, and quickly put in place a program to copy and improve on the design. At that point, the latest German antitank weapons was the Raketenwerfer 43 “Puppchen”, which was a locked-breech rocket launcher built on a carriage like a standard AT gun. It had a substantial range and a very effective 88mm shaped charge warhead, but lacked the one-man mobility offered by the Bazooka. So, the Raketenpanzerbuchse 43 – shortly thereafter renamed the Panzerschreck – was developed in late 1943.

The Panzerschreck kept the 88mm bore of the Puppchen, so that the warhead could be kept unchanged. The rear half of the munition was redesigned to fit an open tube type of launcher. The early Bazookas captured by German forces were at that time fitted with a battery-powered firing system, which the Germans opted to replace (as would the Americans, in later versions). The Panzerschreck trigger used a small generator, where a heavy spring pushed an iron core through a copper winding and magnet, this creating an electrical charge to fire the rocket.

One shortcoming of the Panzerschreck compared to the Bazooka was that the German rockets did not burn completely within the launch tube – the motors continued to fire for about the first 2 meters of flight. This meant that the shooter would receive substantial burns to the face and hands if protective gear was not worn when firing. Initially, troops were instructed to wear filter-less gas masks and winter gloves when shooting, but it was quickly recognized that this was an impractical burden. Soldiers in the field began to craft protective shields to mount on the tubes, and these were formalized in a windowed shield was introduced in 1944 as standard on new production launchers and as a kit to retrofit existing weapons in the field.

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

October 23, 2018

Quantum Computing – The World of the Future – Extra History – #6

Filed under: History, Science, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 21 Oct 2018

Credit to Alisa Bishop for her art on this series: http://www.alisabishop.com/

What does the quantum revolution mean today? We talk about quantum computing application possibilities in machine learning, cybersecurity, environmental science, and more.

A tremendous thank-you to Alexander Tamas, the “mystery patron” who made this series possible. We finally found room in our busy production schedule to create and air this series alongside our regularly scheduled, patron-approved Extra History videos. A huge thank you to the multiple guest artists we got to work with, to Matt Krol for his skillful wrangling of the production schedule and keeping everyone happy, and to our Patreon supporters for your patience and support.

Support us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon

October 22, 2018

The right to repair

Filed under: Business, Government, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Cory Doctorow:

Companies have always tried to corral their customers into behaving in ways that maximize the companies’ profits, even if that’s not best for the customers: forcing you to use “official” printer ink, to buy your printers and terminals from the same company that sold you your mainframe, to get your apps from the company that sold you your phone.

One especially effective profit-maximization strategy is controlling repairs. If a company can force you to use its official repair services, they can set prices for parts and service, and force you to use original manufacturer’s parts, rather than third-party parts or refurbished parts. And, of course, they can refuse to repair a product after a certain number of years: in the absence of a third-party repair option, this means that you have to throw away your product and buy another one from the company.

Though the urge to control customers to maximize profits is as old as business, the digital era has seen an important shift in the tactics used to make business models mandatory. The abuse of laws like Section 1201 of the DMCA (which bans breaking DRM), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (which lets companies treat their “license agreements” as though they had the force of law), as well as trade secrecy and monopolistic supply-chain control has literally criminalized many forms of independent repair, and it’s getting worse.

Last year, 18 state level Right to Repair bills were crushed by a big business coalition led by the tech industry. These bills would end companies’ war on independent service by forcing them to supply parts, manuals, and diagnostic codes to independent technicians.

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