Blockchain, Matrix, Formats, Intelligence, Fiber, Networks, PII

  1. One investment book mentioned exactly what I've been wondering. Why would anyone create blockchain company, when you could have just invested the money in Bitcoin and earned much more? It seems that even crypto enthusiasts do not believe in crypto them selves. Classic trick, I'm selling tips to you how to become rich, because I don't even believe in my own strategy. If I would believe, and it would work, I would tell no one.

  2. Still horrified by the Matrix design flaw, which allows adding users to rooms without their will. If I would be evil and motivated, that could be used to do some pretty nasty trolling just for lulz. Luckily that has been fixed long time ago.

  3. Good low level formats, just made one integration using traditional KLV (@ Wikipedia) which is type of TLV (@ Wikipedia) and of course classics like ASN.1 (@ Wikipedia) including BER, XER and DER. Same S*, different wrapping. Ref: Python asn1 package (@ python-asn1.readthedocs.io).

  4. Read the first ever Finnish Military Intelligence Summary Report. Unsurprisingly Russia and Arctic areas were mentioned, naturally not forgetting cyberspace, hybrid operations and nation state actor espionage. Protecting critical infrastructure. Military counter intelligence operations statement says that foreign intelligence services are active in Finland. Report also contained high level descriptions of management processes, techniques, etc. Yet, it's mentioned that tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) are classified information. Legal aspects also got slightly covered in the report. kw: TP-UTVA, hybrid war, social media and media operations, confusing / conflicting narrative, Designated Security Authority (DSA), OSINT, ELINT, GEOINT, HUMINT, IMINT, MEDINT, MASINT, SIGINT, COMINT, FISINT, TECHINT, COMINT.

  5. Started to wonder, what's micro fiber, and well. It turns out I've completely missed these types of fiber optics. See: Optical fiber (@ Wikipedia) , Photonic-crystal fiber (PCF) (@ Wikipedia), Microstructured optical fibers (MOF) (@ Wikipedia). Not forgetting the Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) and mPOF (@ Wikipedia). Well, it seems that having a time to read Wikipedia every now and then, reminds about what you don't know and there's a lot. Or should I just press the: random article (@ Wikipedia), I'd prefer not to, it's horrible horrible time hog. But to summarize up, for long distances even more efficient optical fibers are used than the traditional single mode fiber.

  6. I guess every nation got it's own secure networks, with serious security hardening and very restricted access. U.S. DoD SIPRNet (@ Wikipedia) Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) is one of those. With all the current cyber espionage and APT threats, it's hard job keeping network actually secure. It could be preferred not to connect it to Internet at all, even avoiding VPN solutions with strong authentication and using multiple security layers on top of each. Also the work stations connecting the network need to be really limited etc. There are tools for doing that, I've done it a few times. But in practical terms, I haven't seen anyone using those in production. It has been always kind of test, can be do it, and will it be secure and will the system remain usable. Which then needs to be balanced. Of course all the software in the system need to be sand boxed logging and be correctly designed to work in such environment.

  7. Location data is PII and it shouldn't be stored or sold, nor being accessible without warrant. Naturally selling or storing the data can be a crime, unless agreed otherwise: Ref: - Intelligence Analysts Use U.S. Smartphone Location Data Without Warrants (@ nytimes.com). Yet some use the location data without warrants, which isn't unexpected, because it's intelligence analysts. I assume that pretty much happens in every country. All data available, will be used. Only way to fix it, is to make the data unavailable to begin with.

  8. Something not so different: Type 055 destroyer (@ Wikipedia) Latest Chinese destroyer for it's naval forces.

2022-08-14