Israeli Use Of White Phosphorous Munitions

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Jan 162009
 

So various organisations claim that Israel is using white phosphorous munitions in Gaza, and Israel denies their use. Or to be more specific denies the use of “WP” which is military slang for white phosphorous munitions intended for uses other than smoke (i.e. set things burning which might not otherwise burn – like people).

But Israel is using white phosphorous munitions; tell-tale pictures of shell casing designed for use as smoke screens have been released, and they have admitted using smoke screens. This makes their denial of white phosphorous (or more specifically “WP”) considerably foolish.

Whilst a nit-picker could claim their denial is in fact true, their denial relies on people understanding the difference between “WP” munitions and smoke-screen munitions. It would be far better to say that their use of white phosphorous is compatible with the various laws of war (the Geneva conventions, etc.).

But is it ? A spokesperson for Israel is hardly in the position to know. They may well know there is a policy to only use white phosphorous smoke screens in areas where civilians may be, and they may not be used to target civilians, but they do not know that Israeli armed forces have stuck to those policies. It is easy to imagine that some artillery unit has noticed that their smoke screen shells when “accidentally” fired too low are quite effective at setting fire to things and to carry on having “accidents” without letting their senior commanders know.

Even if that is not happening, and Israel is sticking to the letter of the laws of war, they may not be sticking to the spirit of the laws of war. The use of white phosphorous munitions in cvilian areas is banned to prevent horrific injuries to civilians; the use of smoke-screen weapons in civilian areas that may cause such injuries sounds like it should also be forbidden.

White phosphorous is a terror weapon in much the same vein as chemical weapons … it is not classified as a chemical weapon because armed forces find the smoke screen effect so useful. It is worth pointing out that one of the first uses of white phosphorous was by a terrorist organisation in the 19th Century (the Fenians).

Passwords Are Dumb …

 Computing  No Responses »
Jan 142009
 

But not writing them down is dumber.

Supposedly we are not supposed to write down passwords, but who can remember hundreds of passwords ? In the distant past where the advice to not write down passwords was first suggested most users would have had just a few passwords.

Gradually things become more IT-orientated, and users would start complaining about the number of passwords they had to remember.

And we made things simpler for them by coming up with single-sign on mechanisms. Which was the wrong thing to do. Yes it makes things easier, but now a single compromised password will open up many different systems.

And of course we have the web with zillions of web sites that insist that each are important enough to have a unique account for. More passwords to “remember”.

Trying to tell people not to write passwords down is in the end going to reduce security. Firstly users will use the same password in many places so that they have fewer passwords to remember, and secondly they will write those passwords down. Why not let them do it right ?

So how can password be written down securely ? Well the first possibility is to use a secure password store so that passwords are held in an encrypted form. The second is to write them down using a consistent system to encode the passwords in some way (for example adding 1 to every digit, and moving each letter down 1) and splitting the usernames and passwords into seperate lists.

And of course encourage them to use different passwords in different places so that if one becomes compromised they will only have one site broken into.

But is it time to move on from passwords ?

We (as users) do not really want to enter passwords to use things. The login screen is an interruption in the flow of activities. We need something that will allow a distant server to establish the identity of ourselves without a login screen. Preferrably using something similar to Kerberos.

This will probably require an initial authentication process. Again the use of passwords should be avoided (except for critical services such as banking). Why not use some form of biometrics ?

Solaris, ZFS, and LVM

 Computing  No Responses »
Jan 082009
 

If you think that you can use a ZFS volume as a Solaris LVM metadevice database, you will be wrong. Whilst it works initially, the LVM subsystem is initialised before ZFS this cannot find the databases. Whilst this may seem to be a perverse configuration at least one administrator has tried it – being me!

Hamas & The Israeli Government: A Plague On Both Your Houses

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Jan 032009
 

Never has an overused phrase been more deserved as in the case of the Israeli government and the Hamas group in the latest chapter in the long running sorry story of violence between Palestinians and Israelis. Both sides should be mortally ashamed of their actions. Both sides are more interested in political posturing than in concern over the people they supposedly represent.

It also demonstrates that governments at best are only interested in paying lip service to serving “the people” and will spend far more resources looking after their own interests – retaining power. It is just that you rarely see governments lusting after power quite this much.

What does Hamas think it is doing with those pathetic rocket attacks against Israel ? They seem to serve little purpose other than to annoy Israel, and provide an ego boost to the Hamas militants. It is not as if they are very effective at killing innocent civilians.

And as for the Israeli response, you have tried this same thing before … over and over again for around 60 years. You have not managed to stop Palestinians military or terrorist actions in the past with this (over the long term), so why do you think it will work this time? All this indiscriminate killing will achieve is further evidence that Israel does not give two hoots for international law or for the lives of innocent (in many cases) Palestinians.

It is interesting to note that Israel does not permit journalists to enter Gaza. Almost as if they know what they are doing is wrong and just do not care. And of course as their ground offensive has started, perhaps they are trying to hide something ?

Israeli actions will drive Palestinians into being more accepting of extremists and will in the long term increase the amount of violence against Israeli civilians. Does that mean Israel should not respond to Hamas missile attacks ? No of course not, but the response must be proportionate (to be legal), and must go out of the way to avoid “collateral damage”. It may well be right that Hamas uses civilians as a shield for military purposes, but Hamas will not be blamed for those collateral casualities no matter what Israel claims.

Personally I do not really believe that those who govern Israel are so stupid as to believe these miltary attacks will accomplish anything. They are pandering to the Israeli fanatics frothing at the mouth who insist that something must be done, and the only reason they are doing it is to keep popularity so that they keep power when the next elections occur.

No More Opt-Out On The EU Working Time Directive

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Dec 212008
 

So apparently the EU parliament has said that the UK opt-out on the EU working time directive has got to go, meaning no more than a 48 hour working week (averaged out over 17 weeks I believe). Of course this has UK business representatives whinging that this is unacceptable interference with business and it should be the choice of workers whether they work longer or not.

Yeah right. Tough!

Businesses all too often get things their own way, and I suspect (backed by some inside knowledge) that many workers do not in fact have much of a choice in the matter. After all we still have a higher average working week than most other European countries. In fact many British workers are in fact unaware of the EU Working Time directive.

Why is there a demand for long working hours? It is just is not very effective; tired workers are unlikely to be as productive as well rested ones, and in some jobs are more likely to have accidents. Entrepreneurs usually think their workers should work as hard as they do …

But often their workers are in fact working harder even if they are not working as long. And why should the workers work as hard as the entrepreneur ? They certainly will not get as greater reward; it is a rare worker who gets rich when his or her boss does.

And to those who say they cannot afford to live on what they would earn in a 48-hour week, well you need to get another job as you’re being ripped off. And to the apprentice mechanic who was interviewed on the BBC News, the right word for a “girlfriend” who needs money to stay interested is “prostitute”.

Strictly speaking it is not a final decision as the EU Parliament decision needs to go through various stages to be finally decided upon by the European Council. So much for democracy! But here’s hoping that the politicians finally have the courage to stick a finger up at businesses … going without all those expensive meals bought for you by business owners will be good for you and your waistline 🙂

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