On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:19:14 -0500, jmfbahciv wrote:

Marvin the Martian wrote:
On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:43:10 -0600, Bill Ward wrote:


Well, the leaked emails seem to provide evidence for the chicanery
we've all suspected. Some of it looks illegal, perhaps felonious.

Exactly. I thought maybe these "climate scientists" were just stupid.
You know how it is; the "A+" guys go into theoretical physics and
particle physics. The "B" guys go on to build bombs. The B- guys who
barely made it through grad school at Po-dunk U. go on to become
"Climate Scientist".

But they're not just stupid. They're liars. They're frauds.

There are two big problems in physics.

1) The lack of ethics in society in general. 2) Funding.

These two worked together to produce not just non-science, but complete
and utter FRAUD.

Our society is simply not as honest as it used to be. See, "The
Cheating Culture" by David Callahan for many examples of how our ethics
and honesty has declined in our culture.

The second problem is how science is funded.

Research that finds a threat or promises a big payoff get funded, even
if they are complete and utter crap. I've seen a bad theory and cherry
picked results get funded year after year, each time with the results
"needs more research". Not just climate change, which is the biggest
scam of all.

What do you think is going to happen? That some "researcher" is going
to say "opps! I made a math error in my theory" or "I cherry picked the
results, really nothing going on here different from conventional
physics"? Hell no! They're not going to make themselves unemployed by
being honest. They LIE. What's really scary is how some of them even
begin to believe their own BS.



Why are you not blaming the real crooks?

It was a conspiracy of crooks.

It was a bunch of third world dictatorships that wanted to scam the
United States out of trillions of dollars. They were lead by the People's
Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China, who bribed Al Gore to
be their spokesman. We KNOW they did this because Al Gore was caught with
their $100,000 bribe.

The IPCC was created by the UN general assembly, which is controlled by
third world nations, specifically for the purpose of funding research
that supported the scam. They panted to the whores who would pose as
"scientist" who would give any result desired for the right funding.

And the non-scientist pandered to the wackos who hate America and that
hate humanity. These wackos have the irrational belief that humans (other
than themselves, of course) are dirty polluting beasts that have to be
killed off by the billions in order to make the world fit for humans.

Marvin the Martian wrote:
On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:17:57 -0500, jmfbahciv wrote:

Marvin the Martian wrote:
What a bunch of childish bull.

I have data on a USB drive that started out on a 5 1/2" floppies.
Impossible. Floppies don't receive data magically.

You can
still download SPICE versions that used to be on tape archives.

This silly canard that if it was once on paper tape or punch cards it
could never be moved to another medium is so stupid that only an utter
idiot would try to pass it off.


Where are you getting this idea (that it can't be moved). All that I'm
stating is that transforming from one form to another makes the copy not
the raw data. The raw data is usually saved intact as a sanity check.


Look, the CRU folks and their co-conspirators SAID they would delete it
if there was a Freedom of Information act attempt to get it, there were
FOI attempts to get it, and it's now deleted.

Okay, so lets stop with this idiot talk about how it was on paper tape.
IT's just a stupid lie. It isn't even supposed to be believed, its only
has to be a good enough lie to keep the conspirators out of prison.
You aren't even seeing the trees for the forest. :-).

/BAH

Now you're being silly. Using that illogic, the "raw data" is the mercury
in the thermometers at a thousand weather stations and it only existed at
the time it was taken. Everything else, including the paper logs where it
was written down, is not "raw data".

Sorry, I thought you were serious.

The CRU destroyed the data, as in "the numbers don't exist anymore". They
don't exist on punch tape, on disk, on DVDrom, nor a RAID array or USB
drive.

Now, child, go play your ****y little semantic game somewhere else.

Oh, brother. I am being serious. You, apparently, have no idea how
this kind of work is done nor the problems involved.

/BAH

jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

There has been a failure to communicate the real science to the
general public though. The Exxon funded denialist think tanks have
been allowed to muddy the water for far too long without being
properly challenged.

It wouldn't matter iff scam artists such as Al Gore didn't get into the
mix. Using a presidential party platform is one of the tactics to make
big huge messes.

I am no fan of Al Gore or his Hollywood film.
He is very much of the "do as I say not as I do" school of politics.

The former UK Chief Science Advisor David King last night on BBC
Newsnight said that the hack against CRU was an extraordinary
sophisticated piece of work typical of a government agency. I didn't
think he was all that good in the interview and communicationg science
research to the public is a serious problem. People simply do not
trust scientists now

But the general public trusts the politicians. That makes no sense
to me.

Not in the UK they don't. The only people more reviled than politicians
at the moment are merchant w^dbankers who are all taking home their 7
figure bonuses for not having quite totally destroyed the worlds
economy. Killing 1 in 10 would more accurately match the UK public mood
(true of both bankers and national politicians).

and several guests made completely dishonest claims about AGW based on
what they have read online. These went unchallenged since the
scientists were not present for the audience discussion.

Which makes me smell the bias scent of the BBC.

Newsnight is generally pretty good in terms of investigating. They have
one or two really excellent interviewers who will not stand any
nonsense. Famously once putting the same question to a former home
secretary 9 times demanding an answer (and so ending his career). It
wasn't quite as hostile as it looked a technical fault meant that the
front man had to stall for time. He did it by asking the same question
and as the interviewee became more annoyed it worked brilliantly.

The Newsnight piece is online at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/8418356.stm

Unsure if you can watch it online outside of the UK.

It isn't very long. Take a look and see what you think.

Democracy is the least bad alternative

Democracy is not 100% freedom; it is a mixture of freedom and equality.
The one rein checks the other.

although it helps if you have at least three political parties. The US
style bipolar disorder in politics makes it impossible to avoid a
situation where if the Democrats are for something the Republicans are
automatically against it and vice-versa. A recipe for deadlock.

Which is a feature.

Although not a benefit. If you have a broadly credible third party in
waiting that can hold some of the middle ground and tell the truth (a
bit like Jeremy cricket for Pinnocchio). Then there tends to be less of
a wild "them" and "us" oscillation. Instead the US has two different
colours of Pinnocchios one Red and one Blue both with very long noses.

The IPCC collates the science and distills it into a summary form
where policy makers can understand it without having to read all the
primary literature. It is actually a well balanced piece of work and
highlights the uncertainties and areas still needing more research as
well as the conclusions that can be drawn from the existing data.
Online at:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

Have a look and see what you think. There are references into the
primary literature if you want to take it further.

So the demand made within this thread was smoke. I'll try to get
to the library and take a look at it.

You can download most of it for free online.

They were hacked and by the sounds of it by a very professional team.

New hard/software was also getting released within the same time frame.

Unclear as yet whether it was a national security service or a loner
looking for UFOs (like the unfortunate McKinnon who is being
extradited to the USA as a terrorist for hacking secure DOD computers
with UID=guest/pw=guest etc.). I am inclined to think it is the DOD
sysadmins deserving the jail terms.

I've been working with systems since the late 60s. Security is
extremely difficult to maintain and the OS, which whose primary
goal was 100% security, isn't available as the primary OS
anymore.

/BAH

Doesn't matter how secure the OS is if you leave well known default
passwords set on accounts that have full system supervisor privileges
and/or the ability to create new accounts with any settings you like.

It isn't rocket science to scan user account lists for weak passwords
these days. Defaults on one of the systems I used at university were
equal to the userid initially. An astonishing number of large value
account holders did not change this default. One day the system log
printer was found to be printing a list of all such accounts.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Martin Brown wrote:
jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

There has been a failure to communicate the real science to the
general public though. The Exxon funded denialist think tanks have
been allowed to muddy the water for far too long without being
properly challenged.

It wouldn't matter iff scam artists such as Al Gore didn't get into the
mix. Using a presidential party platform is one of the tactics to make
big huge messes.

I am no fan of Al Gore or his Hollywood film.
He is very much of the "do as I say not as I do" school of politics.

You've missed the whole point. This mess has been caused by
politicians using "science" as the proof for their political
platforms to further their hidden agendas. This tactic is
not unique to this problem but it is unique in that the
monies, economies, trade, and all other aspects of Western
civilization were affected on a world-wide level. I can't
think of any other scam that was allowed to go this
far without the bubble burst.


The former UK Chief Science Advisor David King last night on BBC
Newsnight said that the hack against CRU was an extraordinary
sophisticated piece of work typical of a government agency. I didn't
think he was all that good in the interview and communicationg
science research to the public is a serious problem. People simply do
not trust scientists now

But the general public trusts the politicians. That makes no sense
to me.

Not in the UK they don't.

Yes, they do. Even the UK voters keep reelecting them. Parliament
puts the same old staff in power.

The only people more reviled than politicians
at the moment are merchant w^dbankers who are all taking home their 7
figure bonuses for not having quite totally destroyed the worlds
economy. Killing 1 in 10 would more accurately match the UK public mood
(true of both bankers and national politicians).

Wonderful. That's not fixing the source of the mess.


and several guests made completely dishonest claims about AGW based
on what they have read online. These went unchallenged since the
scientists were not present for the audience discussion.

Which makes me smell the bias scent of the BBC.

Newsnight is generally pretty good in terms of investigating. They have
one or two really excellent interviewers who will not stand any
nonsense. Famously once putting the same question to a former home
secretary 9 times demanding an answer (and so ending his career). It
wasn't quite as hostile as it looked a technical fault meant that the
front man had to stall for time. He did it by asking the same question
and as the interviewee became more annoyed it worked brilliantly.

Sounds like a Katie Couric technique. Ask the dumbest questions
which nobody but the so-called intelligensia cares about.


The Newsnight piece is online at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/8418356.stm

Unsure if you can watch it online outside of the UK.

It isn't very long. Take a look and see what you think.

I probably won't get to it.


Democracy is the least bad alternative

Democracy is not 100% freedom; it is a mixture of freedom and equality.
The one rein checks the other.

although it helps if you have at least three political parties. The
US style bipolar disorder in politics makes it impossible to avoid a
situation where if the Democrats are for something the Republicans
are automatically against it and vice-versa. A recipe for deadlock.

Which is a feature.

Although not a benefit.

Sure it is. We (the US) could have used a deadlock this week.

If you have a broadly credible third party in
waiting that can hold some of the middle ground and tell the truth (a
bit like Jeremy cricket for Pinnocchio).

That's a big IF and doesn't exist.

Then there tends to be less of
a wild "them" and "us" oscillation. Instead the US has two different
colours of Pinnocchios one Red and one Blue both with very long noses.

The IPCC collates the science and distills it into a summary form
where policy makers can understand it without having to read all the
primary literature. It is actually a well balanced piece of work and
highlights the uncertainties and areas still needing more research as
well as the conclusions that can be drawn from the existing data.
Online at:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

Have a look and see what you think. There are references into the
primary literature if you want to take it further.

So the demand made within this thread was smoke. I'll try to get
to the library and take a look at it.

You can download most of it for free online.


I have to go to the library to view it.


They were hacked and by the sounds of it by a very professional team.

New hard/software was also getting released within the same time frame.

Unclear as yet whether it was a national security service or a loner
looking for UFOs (like the unfortunate McKinnon who is being
extradited to the USA as a terrorist for hacking secure DOD computers
with UID=guest/pw=guest etc.). I am inclined to think it is the DOD
sysadmins deserving the jail terms.

I've been working with systems since the late 60s. Security is
extremely difficult to maintain and the OS, which whose primary
goal was 100% security, isn't available as the primary OS
anymore.

/BAH

Doesn't matter how secure the OS is if you leave well known default
passwords set on accounts that have full system supervisor privileges
and/or the ability to create new accounts with any settings you like.

Honey, part of the design of an OS, whose primary goal statement is
security, will not have that kind of access implemented at all.


It isn't rocket science to scan user account lists for weak passwords
these days. Defaults on one of the systems I used at university were
equal to the userid initially. An astonishing number of large value
account holders did not change this default. One day the system log
printer was found to be printing a list of all such accounts.

That's been the case since the 60s. This is not a "new" security
issue :-).

/BAH

jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

There has been a failure to communicate the real science to the
general public though. The Exxon funded denialist think tanks have
been allowed to muddy the water for far too long without being
properly challenged.

It wouldn't matter iff scam artists such as Al Gore didn't get into the
mix. Using a presidential party platform is one of the tactics to make
big huge messes.

I am no fan of Al Gore or his Hollywood film.
He is very much of the "do as I say not as I do" school of politics.

You've missed the whole point. This mess has been caused by
politicians using "science" as the proof for their political
platforms to further their hidden agendas. This tactic is

Hardly. In the UK there is nothing like the same extent of of wilful
ignorance of the science. It is the righttards of America and their
incredibly powerful lobby groups that have been active in suppressing
the science. In a country where a third of the population is seriously
obese and takes no excercise caring for the planet is never going to be
a priority. Sad but true.

But Exxon and its propaganda has had plenty of time to spread
disinformation without being adequately challenged.

not unique to this problem but it is unique in that the
monies, economies, trade, and all other aspects of Western
civilization were affected on a world-wide level. I can't
think of any other scam that was allowed to go this
far without the bubble burst.

It isn't a scam. The science is real enough. What we *do* about it is
another matter altogether. Building nuclear power plants and increasing
vehicle fuel efficiency are pretty obvious first steps.

The former UK Chief Science Advisor David King last night on BBC
Newsnight said that the hack against CRU was an extraordinary
sophisticated piece of work typical of a government agency. I didn't
think he was all that good in the interview and communicationg
science research to the public is a serious problem. People simply
do not trust scientists now

But the general public trusts the politicians. That makes no sense
to me.

Not in the UK they don't.

Yes, they do. Even the UK voters keep reelecting them. Parliament
puts the same old staff in power.

Actually no. Only the fairly good ones get elected here. It isn't all
that well paid either. There have been several famous stalking horse
incidents where independents have targeted a dodgy MP up for re-election
with great effect. UK elections are much more finely balanced than in
America. There are nothing like as many rotten boroughs and a lot more
swing states.

The only people more reviled than politicians at the moment are
merchant w^dbankers who are all taking home their 7 figure bonuses for
not having quite totally destroyed the worlds economy. Killing 1 in 10
would more accurately match the UK public mood (true of both bankers
and national politicians).

Wonderful. That's not fixing the source of the mess.

I was amused to find the Bank of England bailing out the cretins in 1848
in much the same way with roughly the equivalent stern open letter of
condemnation and lots of taxpayers cash. It was yet another clever paper
derivatives money trick that went pear shaped. They have been at it
forever. Vast unemployment occurred as manufacturers had nothing to pay
the wages with - it was the first outing of the anti-gold standard league.

and several guests made completely dishonest claims about AGW based
on what they have read online. These went unchallenged since the
scientists were not present for the audience discussion.

Which makes me smell the bias scent of the BBC.

Newsnight is generally pretty good in terms of investigating. They
have one or two really excellent interviewers who will not stand any
nonsense. Famously once putting the same question to a former home
secretary 9 times demanding an answer (and so ending his career). It
wasn't quite as hostile as it looked a technical fault meant that the
front man had to stall for time. He did it by asking the same question
and as the interviewee became more annoyed it worked brilliantly.

Sounds like a Katie Couric technique. Ask the dumbest questions
which nobody but the so-called intelligensia cares about.

It wasn't a particularly dumb question.

The Newsnight piece is online at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/8418356.stm

Unsure if you can watch it online outside of the UK.

It isn't very long. Take a look and see what you think.

I probably won't get to it.

Don't tell me you are not on broadband?

Democracy is the least bad alternative

Democracy is not 100% freedom; it is a mixture of freedom and equality.
The one rein checks the other.

although it helps if you have at least three political parties. The
US style bipolar disorder in politics makes it impossible to avoid a
situation where if the Democrats are for something the Republicans
are automatically against it and vice-versa. A recipe for deadlock.

Which is a feature.

Although not a benefit.

Sure it is. We (the US) could have used a deadlock this week.

No. You are terrified of change, but the US medical system is vastly
overpriced, corrupt and exists mainly to line the pockets of insurance
salesmen and senators via the various lobbyists. How come we never hear
about the guy they caught red handed and his list of "contacts".

If you have a broadly credible third party in
waiting that can hold some of the middle ground and tell the truth (a
bit like Jeremy cricket for Pinnocchio).

That's a big IF and doesn't exist.

It does in the UK. They are called the "Liberal Democrats". Not a name I
would expect to go down well in the USA where "Liberal" is used as a
term of abuse.

Then there tends to be less of a wild "them" and "us" oscillation.
Instead the US has two different colours of Pinnocchios one Red and
one Blue both with very long noses.

The IPCC collates the science and distills it into a summary form
where policy makers can understand it without having to read all the
primary literature. It is actually a well balanced piece of work and
highlights the uncertainties and areas still needing more research
as well as the conclusions that can be drawn from the existing data.
Online at:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

Have a look and see what you think. There are references into the
primary literature if you want to take it further.

So the demand made within this thread was smoke. I'll try to get
to the library and take a look at it.

You can download most of it for free online.

I have to go to the library to view it.

Use the book then it is much easier to work with!

Doesn't matter how secure the OS is if you leave well known default
passwords set on accounts that have full system supervisor privileges
and/or the ability to create new accounts with any settings you like.

Honey, part of the design of an OS, whose primary goal statement is
security, will not have that kind of access implemented at all.

I don't recall any OS's in the 1980's that would stop you putting in a
weak password on any major mainframes. Our 3081 was at one time being
used to create accounts that were predictably of the form Pnnn pw=Pnnn.

They stopped that practice, but users continued to set incredibly weak
passwords that would fail to any basic dictionary attack.

It isn't rocket science to scan user account lists for weak passwords
these days. Defaults on one of the systems I used at university were
equal to the userid initially. An astonishing number of large value
account holders did not change this default. One day the system log
printer was found to be printing a list of all such accounts.

That's been the case since the 60s. This is not a "new" security
issue :-).

ISTR VAX and DEC-10 also had weak spots. VAX/VMS was stronger than IBMs
junk but by no means bullet proof eg.

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1990-09.html

The point is that you should not be able to leave powerful privileged
supervisor state accounts with default or obviously weak passwords on a
military computer and particularly not on one connected to the internet!

Like I said originally the hacker may have broken the law but he isn't
the one that needs locking up!

Regards,
Martin Brown

jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

There has been a failure to communicate the real science to the
general public though. The Exxon funded denialist think tanks have
been allowed to muddy the water for far too long without being
properly challenged.

It wouldn't matter iff scam artists such as Al Gore didn't get into the
mix. Using a presidential party platform is one of the tactics to make
big huge messes.

I am no fan of Al Gore or his Hollywood film.
He is very much of the "do as I say not as I do" school of politics.

You've missed the whole point. This mess has been caused by
politicians using "science" as the proof for their political
platforms to further their hidden agendas. This tactic is

Hardly. In the UK there is nothing like the same extent of of wilful
ignorance of the science. It is the righttards of America and their
incredibly powerful lobby groups that have been active in suppressing
the science. In a country where a third of the population is seriously
obese and takes no excercise caring for the planet is never going to be
a priority. Sad but true.

But Exxon and its propaganda has had plenty of time to spread
disinformation without being adequately challenged.

not unique to this problem but it is unique in that the
monies, economies, trade, and all other aspects of Western
civilization were affected on a world-wide level. I can't
think of any other scam that was allowed to go this
far without the bubble burst.

It isn't a scam. The science is real enough. What we *do* about it is
another matter altogether. Building nuclear power plants and increasing
vehicle fuel efficiency are pretty obvious first steps.

The former UK Chief Science Advisor David King last night on BBC
Newsnight said that the hack against CRU was an extraordinary
sophisticated piece of work typical of a government agency. I didn't
think he was all that good in the interview and communicationg
science research to the public is a serious problem. People simply
do not trust scientists now

But the general public trusts the politicians. That makes no sense
to me.

Not in the UK they don't.

Yes, they do. Even the UK voters keep reelecting them. Parliament
puts the same old staff in power.

Actually no. Only the fairly good ones get elected here. It isn't all
that well paid either. There have been several famous stalking horse
incidents where independents have targeted a dodgy MP up for re-election
with great effect. UK elections are much more finely balanced than in
America. There are nothing like as many rotten boroughs and a lot more
swing states.

The only people more reviled than politicians at the moment are
merchant w^dbankers who are all taking home their 7 figure bonuses for
not having quite totally destroyed the worlds economy. Killing 1 in 10
would more accurately match the UK public mood (true of both bankers
and national politicians).

Wonderful. That's not fixing the source of the mess.

I was amused to find the Bank of England bailing out the cretins in 1848
in much the same way with roughly the equivalent stern open letter of
condemnation and lots of taxpayers cash. It was yet another clever paper
derivatives money trick that went pear shaped. They have been at it
forever. Vast unemployment occurred as manufacturers had nothing to pay
the wages with - it was the first outing of the anti-gold standard league.

and several guests made completely dishonest claims about AGW based
on what they have read online. These went unchallenged since the
scientists were not present for the audience discussion.

Which makes me smell the bias scent of the BBC.

Newsnight is generally pretty good in terms of investigating. They
have one or two really excellent interviewers who will not stand any
nonsense. Famously once putting the same question to a former home
secretary 9 times demanding an answer (and so ending his career). It
wasn't quite as hostile as it looked a technical fault meant that the
front man had to stall for time. He did it by asking the same question
and as the interviewee became more annoyed it worked brilliantly.

Sounds like a Katie Couric technique. Ask the dumbest questions
which nobody but the so-called intelligensia cares about.

It wasn't a particularly dumb question.

The Newsnight piece is online at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/8418356.stm

Unsure if you can watch it online outside of the UK.

It isn't very long. Take a look and see what you think.

I probably won't get to it.

Don't tell me you are not on broadband?

Democracy is the least bad alternative

Democracy is not 100% freedom; it is a mixture of freedom and equality.
The one rein checks the other.

although it helps if you have at least three political parties. The
US style bipolar disorder in politics makes it impossible to avoid a
situation where if the Democrats are for something the Republicans
are automatically against it and vice-versa. A recipe for deadlock.

Which is a feature.

Although not a benefit.

Sure it is. We (the US) could have used a deadlock this week.

No. You are terrified of change, but the US medical system is vastly
overpriced, corrupt and exists mainly to line the pockets of insurance
salesmen and senators via the various lobbyists. How come we never hear
about the guy they caught red handed and his list of "contacts".

If you have a broadly credible third party in
waiting that can hold some of the middle ground and tell the truth (a
bit like Jeremy cricket for Pinnocchio).

That's a big IF and doesn't exist.

It does in the UK. They are called the "Liberal Democrats". Not a name I
would expect to go down well in the USA where "Liberal" is used as a
term of abuse.

Then there tends to be less of a wild "them" and "us" oscillation.
Instead the US has two different colours of Pinnocchios one Red and
one Blue both with very long noses.

The IPCC collates the science and distills it into a summary form
where policy makers can understand it without having to read all the
primary literature. It is actually a well balanced piece of work and
highlights the uncertainties and areas still needing more research
as well as the conclusions that can be drawn from the existing data.
Online at:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

Have a look and see what you think. There are references into the
primary literature if you want to take it further.

So the demand made within this thread was smoke. I'll try to get
to the library and take a look at it.

You can download most of it for free online.

I have to go to the library to view it.

Use the book then it is much easier to work with!

Doesn't matter how secure the OS is if you leave well known default
passwords set on accounts that have full system supervisor privileges
and/or the ability to create new accounts with any settings you like.

Honey, part of the design of an OS, whose primary goal statement is
security, will not have that kind of access implemented at all.

I don't recall any OS's in the 1980's that would stop you putting in a
weak password on any major mainframes. Our 3081 was at one time being
used to create accounts that were predictably of the form Pnnn pw=Pnnn.

They stopped that practice, but users continued to set incredibly weak
passwords that would fail to any basic dictionary attack.

It isn't rocket science to scan user account lists for weak passwords
these days. Defaults on one of the systems I used at university were
equal to the userid initially. An astonishing number of large value
account holders did not change this default. One day the system log
printer was found to be printing a list of all such accounts.

That's been the case since the 60s. This is not a "new" security
issue :-).

ISTR VAX and DEC-10 also had weak spots. VAX/VMS was stronger than IBMs
junk but by no means bullet proof eg.

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1990-09.html

The point is that you should not be able to leave powerful privileged
supervisor state accounts with default or obviously weak passwords on a
military computer and particularly not on one connected to the internet!

Like I said originally the hacker may have broken the law but he isn't
the one that needs locking up!

Regards,
Martin Brown

Martin Brown wrote:
jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

There has been a failure to communicate the real science to the
general public though. The Exxon funded denialist think tanks have
been allowed to muddy the water for far too long without being
properly challenged.

It wouldn't matter iff scam artists such as Al Gore didn't get into the
mix. Using a presidential party platform is one of the tactics to make
big huge messes.

I am no fan of Al Gore or his Hollywood film.
He is very much of the "do as I say not as I do" school of politics.

You've missed the whole point. This mess has been caused by
politicians using "science" as the proof for their political
platforms to further their hidden agendas. This tactic is

Hardly. In the UK there is nothing like the same extent of of wilful
ignorance of the science.

Now why am I smelling a rat? ;-)

It is the righttards of America and their
incredibly powerful lobby groups that have been active in suppressing
the science. In a country where a third of the population is seriously
obese and takes no excercise caring for the planet is never going to be
a priority. Sad but true.

But Exxon and its propaganda has had plenty of time to spread
disinformation without being adequately challenged.

So you're another conspiracy nut.

not unique to this problem but it is unique in that the
monies, economies, trade, and all other aspects of Western
civilization were affected on a world-wide level. I can't
think of any other scam that was allowed to go this
far without the bubble burst.

It isn't a scam. The science is real enough.

No, it's not. That's the whole ****ing point.

What we *do* about it is
another matter altogether. Building nuclear power plants and increasing
vehicle fuel efficiency are pretty obvious first steps.

The former UK Chief Science Advisor David King last night on BBC
Newsnight said that the hack against CRU was an extraordinary
sophisticated piece of work typical of a government agency. I
didn't think he was all that good in the interview and
communicationg science research to the public is a serious problem.
People simply do not trust scientists now

But the general public trusts the politicians. That makes no sense
to me.

Not in the UK they don't.

Yes, they do. Even the UK voters keep reelecting them. Parliament
puts the same old staff in power.

Actually no. Only the fairly good ones get elected here. It isn't all
that well paid either. There have been several famous stalking horse
incidents where independents have targeted a dodgy MP up for re-election
with great effect. UK elections are much more finely balanced than in
America. There are nothing like as many rotten boroughs and a lot more
swing states.

ahem Your country is also quite small w.r.t. area. You also have
just as many rotten apples as anybody else.
Don't tell me you are not on broadband?

Ok. I won't tell you. Since I had been using a 14400 baud modem,
I'm now luxuriating with a 44000 baud modem.

No. You are terrified of change, but the US medical system is vastly
overpriced,

Because of the lack of torte reform.

corrupt and exists mainly to line the pockets of insurance
salesmen and senators via the various lobbyists. How come we never hear
about the guy they caught red handed and his list of "contacts".

You don't know how things work over here.


If you have a broadly credible third party in
waiting that can hold some of the middle ground and tell the truth (a
bit like Jeremy cricket for Pinnocchio).

That's a big IF and doesn't exist.

It does in the UK. They are called the "Liberal Democrats". Not a name I
would expect to go down well in the USA where "Liberal" is used as a
term of abuse.

England was still suffering the financial aftereffects of WWII as late
as the 80s. Your political system doesn't work that well either.


Doesn't matter how secure the OS is if you leave well known default
passwords set on accounts that have full system supervisor privileges
and/or the ability to create new accounts with any settings you like.

Honey, part of the design of an OS, whose primary goal statement is
security, will not have that kind of access implemented at all.

I don't recall any OS's in the 1980's that would stop you putting in a
weak password on any major mainframes. Our 3081 was at one time being
used to create accounts that were predictably of the form Pnnn pw=Pnnn.

None of the 1980s operating systems, which you are familiar with,
had a primary goal of security.


They stopped that practice, but users continued to set incredibly weak
passwords that would fail to any basic dictionary attack.

Passwords are the least of the problem.


It isn't rocket science to scan user account lists for weak passwords
these days. Defaults on one of the systems I used at university were
equal to the userid initially. An astonishing number of large value
account holders did not change this default. One day the system log
printer was found to be printing a list of all such accounts.

That's been the case since the 60s. This is not a "new" security
issue :-).

ISTR VAX and DEC-10 also had weak spots. VAX/VMS was stronger than IBMs
junk but by no means bullet proof eg.

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1990-09.html

Nothing is bullet proof if any human is involved.


The point is that you should not be able to leave powerful privileged
supervisor state accounts with default or obviously weak passwords on a
military computer and particularly not on one connected to the internet!

Like I said originally the hacker may have broken the law but he isn't
the one that needs locking up!

Apparently, there was no hacker.


/BAH

On Dec 23, 3:54*am, Martin Brown
wrote:
jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:
jmfbahciv wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

There has been a failure to communicate the real science to the
general public though. The Exxon funded denialist think tanks have
been allowed to muddy the water for far too long without being
properly challenged.

It wouldn't matter iff scam artists such as Al Gore didn't get into the
mix. *Using a presidential party platform is one of the tactics to make
big huge messes.

I am no fan of Al Gore or his Hollywood film.
He is very much of the "do as I say not as I do" school of politics.

You've missed the whole point. *This mess has been caused by
politicians using "science" as the proof for their political
platforms to further their hidden agendas. *This tactic is

Hardly. In the UK there is nothing like the same extent of of wilful
ignorance of the science. It is the righttards of America and their
incredibly powerful lobby groups that have been active in suppressing
the science.

Wow you're a bad liar. Unless of course you mean that the
incredibly
powerful lobby groups that support global warming myths. The US
media was full of global warming propaganda and the media always
questioned anyone who didn't fall in with the politically correct
"science".

In a country where a third of the population is seriously
obese and takes no excercise caring for the planet is never going to be
a priority. Sad but true.

Non sequitur alert.

But Exxon and its propaganda has had plenty of time to spread
disinformation without being adequately challenged.

Except by every ****ing TV show on the planet, liar.

not unique to this problem but it is unique in that the
monies, economies, trade, and all other aspects of Western
civilization were affected on a world-wide level. *I can't
think of any other scam that was allowed to go this
far without the bubble burst.

It isn't a scam. The science is real enough.

Then why do the proponents have to get people fired for questioning
them? Why do they have to put people on their reports as authors
who disagree with them and don't want to be so listed?

What we *do* about it is
another matter altogether. Building nuclear power plants and increasing
vehicle fuel efficiency are pretty obvious first steps.

The former UK Chief Science Advisor David King last night on BBC
Newsnight said that the hack against CRU was an extraordinary
sophisticated piece of work typical of a government agency. I didn't
think he was all that good in the interview and communicationg
science research to the public is a serious problem. People simply
do not trust scientists now

But the general public trusts the politicians. *That makes no sense
to me.

Not in the UK they don't.

Yes, they do. *Even the UK voters keep reelecting them. *Parliament
puts the same old staff in power.

Actually no. Only the fairly good ones get elected here.

Hey moron, Tony Blair got REelected.

It isn't all that well paid either. There have been several famous stalking
horse incidents where independents have targeted a dodgy MP up for
re-election with great effect. UK elections are much more finely balanced
than in America. There are nothing like as many rotten boroughs and a
lot more swing states.

The only people more reviled than politicians at the moment are
merchant w^dbankers who are all taking home their 7 figure bonuses for
not having quite totally destroyed the worlds economy. Killing 1 in 10
would more accurately match the UK public mood (true of both bankers
and national politicians).

Wonderful. *That's not fixing the source of the mess.

I was amused to find the Bank of England bailing out the cretins in 1848
in much the same way with roughly the equivalent stern open letter of
condemnation and lots of taxpayers cash. It was yet another clever paper
derivatives money trick that went pear shaped. They have been at it
forever. Vast unemployment occurred as manufacturers had nothing to pay
the wages with - it was the first outing of the anti-gold standard league..

Yeah because going off the gold standard works so well.

and several guests made completely dishonest claims about AGW based
on what they have read online. These went unchallenged since the
scientists were not present for the audience discussion.

Which makes me smell the bias scent of the BBC.

Newsnight is generally pretty good in terms of investigating. They
have one or two really excellent interviewers who will not stand any
nonsense. Famously once putting the same question to a former home
secretary 9 times demanding an answer (and so ending his career). It
wasn't quite as hostile as it looked a technical fault meant that the
front man had to stall for time. He did it by asking the same question
and as the interviewee became more annoyed it worked brilliantly.

Sounds like a Katie Couric technique. *Ask the dumbest questions
which nobody but the so-called intelligensia cares about.

It wasn't a particularly dumb question.

The Newsnight piece is online at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/8418356.stm

Unsure if you can watch it online outside of the UK.

It isn't very long. Take a look and see what you think.

I probably won't get to it.

Don't tell me you are not on broadband?

Democracy is the least bad alternative

Democracy is not 100% freedom; *it is a mixture of freedom and equality.
The one rein checks the other.

although it helps if you have at least three political parties. The
US style bipolar disorder in politics makes it impossible to avoid a
situation where if the Democrats are for something the Republicans
are automatically against it and vice-versa. A recipe for deadlock.

Which is a feature.

Although not a benefit.

Sure it is. *We (the US) could have used a deadlock this week.

No. You are terrified of change, but the US medical system is vastly
overpriced, corrupt and exists mainly to line the pockets of insurance
salesmen and senators via the various lobbyists. How come we never hear
about the guy they caught red handed and his list of "contacts".

Obamacare is composed entirely of ideas that have been tried and
failed, more deadlock would have prevented this abortion being passed.
The system is vastly overpriced and corrupt, but that's because the US
public wants free stuff and doesn't even want the government to pay
for it. Thus it ended up with a National Socialist medical system
that
serves only lobbyists. Of course Obama is a National Socialist
president
that serves only lobbyists.

If you have a broadly credible third party in
waiting that can hold some of the middle ground and tell the truth (a
bit like Jeremy cricket for Pinnocchio).

That's a big IF and doesn't exist.

It does in the UK. They are called the "Liberal Democrats". Not a name I
would expect to go down well in the USA where "Liberal" is used as a
term of abuse.

And rightly.

Then there tends to be less of a wild "them" and "us" oscillation.
Instead the US has two different colours of Pinnocchios one Red and
one Blue both with very long noses.

The IPCC collates the science and distills it into a summary form
where policy makers can understand it without having to read all the
primary literature.

Not all of what it "collates" is actually in the original sources,
and the
authors of said sources get a bit mad about that.

It is actually a well balanced piece of work and
highlights the uncertainties and areas still needing more research
as well as the conclusions that can be drawn from the existing data.
Online at:

Not even close to true. The IPCC report was always biased towards
AGW and distorted the views of the people listed as "authors".


http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

Have a look and see what you think. There are references into the
primary literature if you want to take it further.

So the demand made within this thread was smoke. *I'll try to get
to the library and take a look at it.

You can download most of it for free online.

I have to go to the library to view it.

Use the book then it is much easier to work with!

Doesn't matter how secure the OS is if you leave well known default
passwords set on accounts that have full system supervisor privileges
and/or the ability to create new accounts with any settings you like.

Honey, part of the design of an OS, whose primary goal statement is
security, will not have that kind of access implemented at all.

I don't recall any OS's in the 1980's that would stop you putting in a
weak password on any major mainframes. Our 3081 was at one time being
used to create accounts that were predictably of the form Pnnn pw=Pnnn.

They stopped that practice, but users continued to set incredibly weak
passwords that would fail to any basic dictionary attack.

It isn't rocket science to scan user account lists for weak passwords
these days. Defaults on one of the systems I used at university were
equal to the userid initially. An astonishing number of large value
account holders did not change this default. One day the system log
printer was found to be printing a list of all such accounts.

That's been the case since the 60s. *This is not a "new" security
issue :-).

ISTR VAX and DEC-10 also had weak spots. VAX/VMS was stronger than IBMs
junk but by no means bullet proof eg.

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1990-09.html

The point is that you should not be able to leave powerful privileged
supervisor state accounts with default or obviously weak passwords on a
military computer and particularly not on one connected to the internet!

Like I said originally the hacker may have broken the law but he isn't
the one that needs locking up!

Regards,
Martin Brown

On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:54:26 +0000, Martin Brown wrote:

jmfbahciv wrote:

You've missed the whole point. This mess has been caused by
politicians using "science" as the proof for their political platforms
to further their hidden agendas. This tactic is

Hardly. In the UK there is nothing like the same extent of of wilful
ignorance of the science. It is the righttards of America and their
incredibly powerful lobby groups that have been active in suppressing
the science. In a country where a third of the population is seriously
obese and takes no excercise caring for the planet is never going to be
a priority. Sad but true.

Newton is spinning in his grave in shame. I can't believe that someone
can argue that the CRU e-mails doesn't show a terrible scientific
scandal, because many Americans are fat. The rest of his "argument" is
childish gibberish, as if anything could be a bigger non-sequitor than
the fat implies no scientific scandal crap.

On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:01:06 -0600, Marvin the Martian
wrote:

On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:54:26 +0000, Martin Brown wrote:

jmfbahciv wrote:

You've missed the whole point. This mess has been caused by
politicians using "science" as the proof for their political platforms
to further their hidden agendas. This tactic is

Hardly. In the UK there is nothing like the same extent of of wilful
ignorance of the science. It is the righttards of America and their
incredibly powerful lobby groups that have been active in suppressing
the science. In a country where a third of the population is seriously
obese and takes no excercise caring for the planet is never going to be
a priority. Sad but true.

Newton is spinning in his grave in shame. I can't believe that someone
can argue that the CRU e-mails doesn't show a terrible scientific
scandal, because many Americans are fat. The rest of his "argument" is
childish gibberish, as if anything could be a bigger non-sequitor than
the fat implies no scientific scandal crap.


Some Americans _are_ fat, and I hate fat, but
the supermarkets are so full of food, and it is so
low priced, when you can buy 50 pounds of
potatoes for one hours work, can't eat just one.