Category Archives: Security

Energy, History, Security

Chernobyl Lessons

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Interesting review by the BBC of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Reactions went awry, apparently, when some engineers tried to test a hypothesis on a production system. The system quickly heated out of control during the test, and was unable to recover.

Operational errors:

The reactor began to overheat and its water coolant started to turn to steam.

At this point it is thought that all but six control rods had been removed from the reactor core – the minimum safe operating number was considered to be 30.

Design errors:

Because the reactor was not housed in a reinforced concrete shell, as is standard practice in most countries, the building sustained severe damage and large amounts of radioactive debris escaped into the atmosphere.

They are still working on building a containment system, twenty years later, and now need £600m to replace the present system that is failing. Wonder what the cost of the containment shell, and/or a proper development and test environment, would have been prior to the accident.

Security

Internet expression and jail time in Vietnam, Tunisia, Syria

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A man in Vietnam was recently released from prison. His case is interesting because he was charged under security laws after he posted on the Internet thoughts about democracy. Amnesty International has the latest news:

Nguyen Vu Binh was arrested in September 2002, charged under national security legislation and convicted for ‘spying’, article 80 of the Penal Code, for having written and posted articles about democracy on the Internet and being in email contact with political groups in exile.

In addition to the seven years’ imprisonment, Nguyen Vu Binh was also sentenced to a three-year probation period following his release from prison. It remains unclear whether he is currently under such probation or whether he is a free man. Amnesty International is calling for no such restrictions to be imposed on him.

Apparently he was released after numerous protests including hunger-strikes and requesting clemency directly from the country’s leader. Amnesty International is still calling for freedom of dissent under the Vietnam government:

A report by Amnesty International in October 2006 revealed a climate of fear in Vietnam, with people afraid to post information online and Internet café owners forced to inform on their customers. It described individuals being harassed, detained and imprisoned for expressing their peaceful political views online, with fear of prosecution fuelling widespread self-censorship.

[…]

The rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association are guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The covenant is binding on Viet Nam, which is a state party since 1982. Yet peaceful government critics have been charged with criminal offences in the penal code’s Chapter XI, which relates to national security.

In similar cases, a Tunisian man was released after serving time in jail, while a group of Syrian students were allegedly tortured and locked away.

Freedom of expression on the Internet is complex not only due to the laws of the country a person lives in but also due to the laws of the countries overseas that have Internet access, or due to the laws of extra-national groups (e.g. religion). The BBC reports today that a Swedish cartoonist has been forced into hiding by threats from Muslim fundamentalists.

A little closer to home, Project Censored, gives a list of “Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008”

#1 No Habeas Corpus for “Any Person”
#2 Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
#3 AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa’s Resources
#4 Frenzy of Increasingly Destructive Trade Agreements
#5 Human Traffic Builds US Embassy in Iraq
#6 Operation FALCON Raids
#7 Behind Blackwater Inc.
…

For a unique perspective on this issue, I wonder how many will see parallels to the news about parents’ managing their children, including Internet access?

“I’m not saying all the books out there are bad, we’ve just got to restore parents’ confidence in their own ability rather than tell them what to do.”

She argues her approach is about getting people to really think about the kind of parent they are and the kind of parent they want to be, but mostly it’s about getting them to understand their child.

[…]

“I don’t know what a perfect parent is or what a perfect child is but I suspect both would be extremely dull,” she says. “Life is about challenge and emotion, it’s about the reality of living.”

The last part deserves a post of its own, but on the whole these issues show the amazing future challenges for information security systems to both protect sources from harm as well as filter out harmful ideas while still allowing challenging (or challenged?) ideas to flow in a public forum.

Food, History, Poetry, Security

the carrot

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by Kgafela oa Magogodi

the carrot attracts a crooked habit

rabbits cross the floor to chew the rot

vote right

there’s no carrot on the left

the parrot sings praises cos the carrot

is in the pot

the only truth to the tooth is the carrot

liars strangle no more they dangle the carrot

to suck you into the rot

they put the carrot in your pocket

to keep you quiet

no more riot

no more riot

no more riot

just the grinding of rot

the carrot dance is a national sport

see how they run like judas iscariot

to grab the all mighty carrot

now children are taught

that life is about who eats more carrot

to excrete more rot

lairs raise the flag of the carrot

even in the toilet

no more riot

no more riot

no more riot

just the grinding of rot

you’re a true patriot

even if you get caught

stealing the carrot

nobody takes you to court

it matters not if you forgot

to give to the poor a cut

of the carrot.

Interesting work from South Africa by a poet invited to facilitate Steve Biko Foundation poetry workshops. This poem and the following praise for Magogodi caught my eye on the Centre for Creative Arts site:

Reading … listening to Kgafela oa Magogodi’s poetry and song is a shattering experience. His linguistic chisels go far beyond ‘causing blisters in the eardrums of society’. They are like a shattered mirror, with each piece of glass throwing at you a reflection, an image of its own. His art is not something that you can fix a label on without going drastically wrong.

Nobody likes labels, but we depend on them.

Food, Security

Eat the peel

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Growing up I had the fine opportunity to eat fruit right from the tree. One of my favorite parts of citris fruit was the peel. As I grew older I succumbed to the habit of Americans to throw away the peel and just eat the fruit. This was mostly due to the advice from some to avoid the pesticides and harmful wax/polish chemicals used in industrial growing, but also to avoid being teased as a peel-eater. Kumquats were one of the few things I could get away with.

Well, lo and behold, mom was right and the nutrients are really best consumed in the peel:

Salvestrol Q40 is found at higher concentrations in tangerine peel, than in the flesh of the fruit.

The researchers suggest the modern trend to throw away peel may have contributed to a rise in some cancers.

The center is probably designed, very intelligently, to make the peel more palatable. The idea that there should be something that is “garbage” or something to dispose for everything good may be a completely artificial notion. When you think about it, the food industry has been isolating and focusing on the wrong success factors. Industry has been completely mistaken in their race to harness sweet and succulent products, without regard to complex nutrients, and create a disposable wrapper for everything they sell.

This reminds me of companies that ask if they can be made more secure, even more compliant, without actually doing anything that would cost them money. I tell them they might as well ask me if they can be fit without exercise, healthy without eating food.

Security is sometimes described as a harsh pill, but if more business leaders learned to raise their companies on a better diet they would have far fewer emergencies later in life.

I love peel.