Cryptosmith

Janet Napolitano has flubbed her first major event as Secretary of Homeland Security. First, she incorrectly claims that the bomber thwarted on Christmas Day was not on any of the screening lists. Someone manages to correct her, and then today she claims this is a “failure” of the US security system.

She still gets it wrong. The bomber boarded a plane in Nigeria and changed planes in Amsterdam. How are new – and more extreme – physical screening measures in the US going to reduce the risk of a poorly-screened passenger from overseas?

No matter how carefully we screen Grandma when she gets on the flight in Duluth, it’s not going to catch a poorly-screened bomber in Lagos.

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Matt Blaze has posted a blog entry following a visit to the Titan Missile Museum that’s just south of Tucson, Arizona. It’s a well written summary of the place.

Blaze talks a bit about Titan, PALs, and the “butterfly switch;” mechanisms intended to prevent an unauthorized launch. The Titan system didn’t have PALs. The butterfly switch, also known as the “Coded Switch System” (CSS), authorizes the launch. PALs were first required on overseas nukes starting in 1962. Titans were never overseas, and the system was already under construction in the continental US by the time the PAL idea arose.

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Posted under History of Technology & Security | No Comments »

Here are some more observations on using RAID on the Mac OS X, particularly in terms of off-site storage, terminology, and upgrading. Here is a photo of my former off-site hard drive:

It’s been sitting in an office desk drawer for a couple of months, and the time came to cycle it back into the RAID set. But when I tried to spin it up, I was greeted by a disappointing rattle, and the drive didn’t come on-line. The drive, a WD 7500 AAKS, was 14 months old when it died. In the photo above, I’ve removed the case cover in preparation for an autopsy.

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Posted under Household Tech & Security | No Comments »

Over the years, our family has bought three copies of the Crosby, Stills & Nash album. My wife and I each bought a vinyl copy back in the ’70s. Recently we bought a “clean” (not copy protected) copy from the iTunes music store. I expect that’s the last time anyone in our family will have to buy a copy of that album, including all our descendants.

I believe that music sharing is “fair use” within a family. I’m inclined to feel that way about video, and no doubt I’ll feel the same way about digitized books. Cousin Jon sent me a couple of links describing “do it yourself” book scanners. I need to get myself one of those. But a family library of digitized books has an interesting implication for publishers: it will decimate the reprint market. My (not-yet-existing) great grandson won’t ever have to purchase a copy of Pride and Prejudice and should never have to buy any other books I collect in digital form.

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Posted under History of Technology & Tech Teaching | No Comments »