• Risks Digest 32.58 (1/3)

    From RISKS List Owner@21:1/5 to All on Thu Apr 1 18:47:03 2021
    RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Thursday 1 April 2021 Volume 32 : Issue 58

    ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks) Peter G. Neumann, founder and still moderator

    ***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. ***** This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
    <http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/32.58>
    The current issue can also be found at
    <http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>

    Contents:
    April No-Fools' Day? No fooling! (PGN)
    Post-vaccine guidance (Rob Slade)
    Errors ruin 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine
    (NYTimes)
    Dark web bursting with COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine passports (Ars Technica)
    New York launches nation's first vaccine passports (USA Today)
    Vaccine passports (Lauren Weinstein)
    New Covid vaccines needed globally within a year, say scientists
    (The Guardian)
    Child tweets gibberish from U.S. nuclear-agency account (BBC News)
    Fooling facial recognition (The Register)
    Biometrics instead of passwords (The Register via Arthur T.)
    The Antiscience Movement Is Escalating, Going Global and Killing
    Thousands (Peter J. Hotez)
    Nine requests assistance from government after major cyber-attack
    (John Colville)
    How the Nine cyber-attack is affecting the Herald (John Colville)
    How a Software Error Made Spain's Child COVID-19 Mortality Rate Skyrocket
    (Slate)
    The Underground Nuclear Test That Didn't Stay Underground (Atlas Obscura)
    Solar Geoengineering Should be Investigated, Scientists Say
    (Scientific American)
    PHP's Git Server Hacked to Insert Secret Backdoor to Its Source Code
    (The Hacker News)
    New wave of hacktivism adds twist to cybersecurity woes (reuters.com) Blockchain is causing female green sea turtles (Rob Slade)
    Your right to repair: COVID-19 is sending businesses, hospitals, and
    consumers to the breaking point (ZDNet)
    Wetware data retrieval: Forensic analysis and data recovery from
    water-submerged hard drives (Techxplore)
    Scientists can implant false memories -- and reverse them... (Inverse)
    Suez Canal Blocked After Giant Container Ship Gets Stuck (NY Times)
    Suez Canal from Space (Geoff Kuenning)
    'Agile' F-35 fighter software dev techniques failed to speed up supersonic
    jet deliveries (The Register)
    F-35 vs. bird (Gabe Goldberg with PGN comments)
    Radiation Upset confused computers and caused false alarm on International
    Space Station (The Register)
    Vote-by-mail fraud in Australia (Vanessa Teague)
    How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation (TechReview)
    No security on Website intended to prove that Swiss are vaccinated
    (Anthony Thorn)
    Volkswagen apparently changing their name in U.S. (Lauren Weinstein)
    Remote Work Is Here to Stay. Manhattan May Never Be the Same (NYTimes)
    Where Are Those Shoes You Ordered? Check the Ocean Floor (David Lesher) Cautionary story about cryptocurrencies, apps, security... (Gabe Goldberg) Energy-harvesting card treats 5G networks as wireless power grids (NewAtlas) Yet another 5G attack vector (Rob Slade)
    Re: No good evidence that 5G harms humans, new studies find (Douglas Lucas)
    Re: Cybersecurity in retrospect: not good! (Dick Mills)
    Re: How far should humans go to help species adapt? (Bob Wilson)
    Re: Too much choice is hurting America (Sam Steingold)
    Re: Risk transfer and Doordash (John Levine)
    TikTok Does Not Pose Overt Threat to U.S. National Security (Eva Xiao)
    Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2021 10:47:11 PDT
    From: Peter Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
    Subject: April No-Fools' Day? No fooling!

    With all the worldwide rampant disinformation, this year RISKS is attempting
    to eschew intentional foolishness on April Fools' Day. However, this issue
    is full of unintentional folly -- which is normally our standard fare.

    Walt Kelly's Pogo might once have said about April Fools' Day,
    "We have met the fools, and they are us."

    There are of course still a lot of fools believing wild conspiracy theories. But might the fools be many people who do not read RISKS? I would like to believe that after more than 36 years, our readership is continually
    becoming more enlightened.

    However, please read the next item carefully. It starts out (a) as an April Fools piece, but (b) then changes its mind and is not.

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2021 10:51:04 -0800
    From: Rob Slade <rmslade@shaw.ca>
    Subject: Post-vaccine guidance

    Many people are concerned that health authorities, while working diligently
    to ensure vaccine rollout is as fast and as smooth as possible, have not
    given clear and specific guidance to those who *have* been vaccinated as to when they can resume normal activities, and which activities are permitted,
    at which point, once they have received vaccinations. The following is a chapter that was somehow missed from the printed edition of "Cybersecurity Lessons from CoVID-19," and is an attempt to fill that gap.

    As many will know, receipt of the vaccine shot does not immediately confer
    full immunity or protection. There is a delay while the body reacts to the vaccine, and builds up antibody defences. In the case of most vaccines,
    this build-up of protection takes between three weeks and a month. Most of
    the vaccine candidates also benefit from, but do not necessarily require, a booster shot. This second shot can slightly increase the level of
    protection against the infection, and tends to make the protection last for
    a longer period of time.

    There are few changes in routine and protective behaviour, therefore, immediately following receipt of the shot. Those vaccinated are, however, cautioned against celebrating receipt of the vaccine with breakdancing,
    since medical staff will be watching closely, in the first fifteen minutes after vaccine administration, for signs of Adverse Effects From Immunization (AEFIs), and may falsely report high levels of seizures. Also be advised
    that referring to a large vaccination facility as a "mass shooting site"
    will not be appreciated by staff.

    You may have heard of variants of concern. For those who have not yet been vaccinated, you should also be aware that there are also vaccines of
    concern. Do be cautious in terms of the vaccine that you are offered. "Sputnick," "Phiser," or "Modern" brand vaccine is unlikely to be effective, nor is anything manufactured by "Joe's Vaccines-Backwards-R-Us and
    Autobody." If someone offers you P.1, note that this is not a vaccine, but either the virus itself, or a fictional computer virus from a book by Thomas
    J. Ryan.

    Since protection does take time to build, please do not immediately discard your facemask on the floor of the facility with loud exclamations of "Well thank [deity of your choice] *THAT'S* over with!" as you leave. Please continue masking, as usual, for a least a month after receipt of the
    vaccine. (Between weeks three and four it *is* permissible to wear your
    mask under your nose.) If you wish to ceremonially burn your facemask after the full month has passed, please ensure you do so in a well-ventilated area away from dry vegetation, and remove all plastic and rubber components first and discard in appropriate recycling bins.

    Currently, for unvaccinated individuals, gatherings are restricted to households or a designated "safe six." Three weeks after initial
    vaccination, you may introduce a seventh person, but only someone that none
    of you really like. After four weeks, you may introduce one additional vaccinated person per week, as long as they sit more than six feet or two metres away, which distancing can be reduced by one foot (thirty
    centimetres) per week. (If that additional person has received a different vaccine from the one you received, please add an additional four inches [ten centimetres] of distance.)

    Once you have received your second vaccine shot, you may engage in board
    games with people who have received only their first shot, but only if the board and all pieces are sprayed with disinfectant after each move.

    As vaccines have been priorized for those in older age categories, there
    will be situations where grandparents have been vaccinated, but their
    children and grandchildren have not. If the grandparents have had both
    shots, then they may visit if their children (parents of the grandchildren) have had at least one shot, and may have some contact with grandchildren,
    but should avoid "lifting" games, especially if the grandchildren weigh more than fifty pounds. As most vaccines are not yet approved for children under the age of sixteen, contact with the grandchildren should be limited to a gentle pinch on the cheek and the comment, "My, aren't you getting big!"
    (Both cheek and fingers should be sanitized immediately after.) Children
    may attend school, as studies show that transmission rates within schools
    are lower than in the general community. (Parents and grandparents are
    warned that they will not be allowed to live in schools until full
    vaccination is achieved.)

    In terms of intimate relationships, you may engage in short affairs between
    the receipt of your initial shot and your booster shot, but do not enter
    into any relationship likely to extend beyond the date for your second shot.

    Weddings and other large gatherings may slowly resume, with restrictions.
    If both bride and groom are unvaccinated, the ceremony is limited to ten people, outdoors. If both bride and groom have had their first vaccination, the ceremony is limited to ten people, indoors. If the bride and groom have had vaccinations from different manufacturers, the ceremony may be held indoors, but the centre aisle must be a least three metres wide. If all
    guests have had both shots, the ceremony may be held with 50 guests. Any guests who have had only one vaccine are limited to no more than 15, and
    must be at least four rows back from those who have had both shots. If the groom and the groom have both had their shots from the same manufacturer,
    and all the guests have as well, and there is at least one Catholic in the guest list who has had both shots *and* has been sprinkled with holy water, please contact the Vatican medical office for the proper protocol.

    Children's birthday parties with large numbers of children and all parents
    in attendance should only be planned if you do not intend to hold a similar party with the same guests next year.

    Medical guidance is that handwashing should continue after receipt of the
    first vaccine, but you can reduce the time taken by leaving off the last
    line of the second repetition of the "Happy Birthday" song. After receipt
    of the booster shot, you should continue handwashing, but you don't have to scrub under your finger-nails. Two weeks after receipt of the second shot,
    you may eat chili with your bare hands and rub them dry on your pants.

    Two weeks after receipt of the second vaccine shot, decisions about being in enclosed spaces are best left to you and your claustrophobia therapist.

    In terms of travel, road trips in the family car are seen as safer than air travel or other forms of mass transit. Leaving the car for meals,
    recreation, or nightly housing increases the risk, so it is recommended that you just drive to the various locations you want to visit, and not leave the car for any reason until you return home. Note that the kids continually asking "Are we there yet?" will not be accepted as a valid excuse for
    killing them.

    In regard to travel, as well as other activities, some may wish to obtain a "vaccine passport." Well, you can't. At least not one that will be
    recognized as a passport at pretty much any border control. Many people
    will be willing to sell you a vaccine passport, or a vaccine certificate, sometimes even if you haven't been vaccinated! Almost nobody will be
    willing to accept such a passport or certificate. A true vaccine
    certificate will include the date and time of your vaccination, the maker of your vaccine, the batch number, your name, medical history, and medical insurance information, the name, phone number, and digital signature of the person who registered you for the vaccine certificate, the name, phone
    number, medical certificate, and proof of non-membership in an anti-vaxxer organization of the person who reconstituted your shot, and the name,
    number, and a decent picture with the eyes not *too* squidged shut of the person who gave you the shot. Note that non-Chinese vaccine certificates
    will not be accepted in China.

    Remember that no vaccine provides 100% protection. Two weeks after the
    second dose, with a month between first and second doses, Pfizer provides
    95%, Moderna provides 94%, and AstraZeneca provides 60%, 69%, 76%, 79%, 89%,
    or 100%, depending upon how many AstraZeneca press releases you have read. Reading AstraZeneca press releases increases protection, but at the expense
    of a risk of increased anxiety. Those taking the AstraZeneca vaccine
    following a full regime of AstraZeneca press releases are advised to combine
    it with Xanax, and one low-dose or "baby" aspirin. (Medical guidance is
    that AstraZeneca press releases are not recommended for children under the
    age of five.)

    In terms of other activities, pleased be advised that, following
    administration of the vaccine, you will *not* be able to play the bagpipes unless you could play them before you were vaccinated.

    For further details or clarification of these recommendations, please see https://xkcd.com/2434/

    The foregoing is, of course, an "April Fools" piece, and not actual
    medical advice. (If it *had* been medical advice, of course, you would
    have been charged more.) However, yesterday, as I wrote this, and a few
    days ago, as you read this, events forced me to reconsider and add a
    little bit. I had no sooner sent this off to Peter for RISKS than I
    started on my, pretty much daily, trip to the library and the mall. I
    never got to the library because it was surrounded by police. Someone had
    gone on a rampage, stabbing at least six people and sending them to
    hospital. At least one has died.

    The municipality where I live is part of the fairly cosmopolitan city of
    Vancouver, but has the feel of a small town. The neighbourhood where I
    reside is even more protected. It is in a kind of pocket on the side of
    the mountain, and even wind storms seem to pass over it, so it is very
    much the type of place where people would say, "yeah, we see things like
    that on the news, but they never happen *here*."

    The suspect is, apparently, "known to police" and has a record. Nobody
    has yet mentioned "mental issues," but you can almost hear the reporters
    keeping themselves from saying it. (Which is not, of course, a reason for
    attacks: I've fought my own "mental issues" for fifty years. But that's
    another topic.) We probably won't ever know the real reason for the
    attack, but I have to suspect that media reports of mass shootings over
    the past weeks contributed.

    We have all been in a pandemic, and under various restrictions, from
    handwashing to lockdowns, for over a year now. CoVID fatigue is real, and
    it seems to be encouraging us do some pretty awful things. I have been
    extremely disappointed by the move of racism from covert and pernicious to
    overt, vociferous, and even demanding. The almost complete collapse of
    any kind of civility in American political discourse is terrifying. The
    economy seems to have, almost automatically, made the rich richer, and the
    poor poorer, widening the inequity gap. The pandemic seems to have
    magnified all that is worst about our society.

    I hope that the beginning of this piece was, at least, amusing, and
    possibly provides a bit of a break for you in these dark times. The
    vaccines do provide us with a "light at the end of the tunnel" (which is a
    phrase I most often associate with the lights of an oncoming train).
    While even the vaccines, as a limited resource, have created tensions and
    problems, I hope that, within months, they will make a significant
    difference to the over-arching pandemic problems.

    In the meantime, keep to the precautions for a little longer. Wash your
    hands, wear a mask, maintain distance, don't have or go to parties or
    events. When you can, without jumping any queues, get vaccinated. See
    you all on Zoom when there is an opportunity, and in person, hopefully, by
    the fall.

    Oh, one more thing. The day before April Fools day, 31 Mar, is apparently
    World Backup Day. http://www.worldbackupday.com/en/ I'm very big on
    backups. We give them lip service, but we don't do them as often as we
    should. I wrote the first part of this piece over several days, keeping
    it up on the system I was using to write it. As is often the case with
    something I'm working on, I made a separate backup. And, as blind, random
    chance would have it, the system I was writing it on had a hiccup and
    collapsed, taking the piece with it. But, I recovered the backup, and all
    was well.

    Now go make a backup. And, while it's completing, wash your hands.

    ------------------------------

    Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2021 08:41:04 -0400
    From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
    Subject: Errors ruin 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19
    vaccine (The Verge + NYTimes)

    Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine is delayed by a U.S. factory mixup. A manufacturer in Baltimore accidentally conflated the ingredients for two different coronavirus vaccines, officials say. https://www.theverge.com/coronavirus/2021/3/31/22361028/johnson-covid-vaccine-error-ruin-doses
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/world/johnson-and-johnson-vaccine-mixup.html

    ------------------------------

    Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2021 07:24:30 -0700
    From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
    Subject: Dark web bursting with COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine passports
    (Ars Technica)

    [Fake vaccines. Unrefrigerated vaccines. Fake vaccination cards. Train
    wreck. LW]

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/dark-web-bursting-with-covid-19-vaccines-vaccine-passports/

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2021 09:53:05 -1000
    From: Geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
    Subject: New York launches nation's first 'vaccine passports'

    Others are working on similar ideas, but many details must be worked out.

    Starting Friday, New Yorkers will be able to pull up a code on their cell
    phone or a printout to prove they've been vaccinated against COVID-19 or recently tested negative for the virus that causes it.

    The first-in-the-nation certification, called the Excelsior Pass, will be useful first at large-scale venues like Madison Square Garden, but next week will be accepted at dozens of event, arts and entertainment venues
    statewide. It already enables people to increase the size of a wedding
    party, or other catered event.

    The app, championed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to support the recovery of
    industries most affected by the pandemic, is funded by the state and
    available for free to businesses and anyone with vaccination records or
    test results in New York.

    Like an airline boarding pass, people will be able to prove their health
    status with a digital QR code -- or "quick response" machine-readable label. They'll need to download the Excelsior Pass app, enter their name, date of birth, zip code and answer a series of personal questions to confirm their identity. The data will come from the state's vaccine registry and also will
    be linked to testing data from a number of pre-approved testing companies.

    The New York system, built on IBM's digital health pass platform <https://www.ibm.com/products/digital-health-pass>, is provided via
    blockchain technology, so neither IBM nor any business will have access to private medical information. An entertainment venue will simply scan the QR code and get a green check or a red X.

    The new pass is part of a growing but disjointed effort to provide vaccine "passports" or certifications, so people won't have to hang onto a
    dog-eared piece of paper, worry about privacy issues or forgeries, or fork
    over extra cash to prove they're not contagious. [...] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/03/26/covid-vaccine-passports-new-york-first-vaccination-proof-system/6976009002/

    ------------------------------

    Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2021 09:15:12 -0700
    From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
    Subject: Vaccine passports
    Unfortunately, the probability that the array of proposed "vaccine passport" systems could lead to massive new government and private tracking of individuals, and a de facto "national ID" system, is substantial. So far I
    do not see an obvious path that is not ripe for abuses. And one way or
    another, the odds of complex litigation on this topic seem very high.

    ------------------------------

    Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2021 13:27:39 -1000
    From: geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
    Subject: New Covid vaccines needed globally within a year, say scientists
    (The Guardian)

    *Survey of experts in relevant fields concludes that new variants could
    arise in countries with low vaccine coverage* [...] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/30/new-covid-vaccines-needed-within-year-say-scientists

    ------------------------------

    Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2021 14:03:52 -0400
    From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
    Subject: Child tweets gibberish from U.S. nuclear-agency account
    (BBC News)

    A young child inadvertently sparked confusion over the weekend by posting an unintelligible tweet to the official account of US Strategic Command.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56578544

    Risks? Technology + children

    ------------------------------

    Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2021 11:11:28 -0700
    From: Rob Slade <rmslade@shaw.ca>
    Subject: Fooling facial recognition (The Register)

    Two tricksters in China have fooled the state's massive facial recognition system. Temporarily, anyway. https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/31/tax_scammers_fool_ai_facial_recognition

    It's really interesting to look at this story and see the implications
    behind it.  One of the first things people ask about face recognition is, "Can't you just fool it with a picture?"  Apparently the Chinese thought
    of that.  Your image, seemingly, has to be "live," so the attackers used
    a simple deepfake app to animate the picture.

    And that was enough to fool the system ...

    ------------------------------

    Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2021 06:17:10 -0400
    From: "Arthur T." <risks202103.6.atsjbt@xoxy.net>
    Subject: Biometrics instead of passwords

    When your face is your password, you'd best never let anyone take your
    picture. Conversely, if anyone has ever taken your picture, you probably shouldn't use your face as a password. Unfortunately, some people don't have either option.

    https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/31/tax_scammers_fool_ai_facial_recognition/

    ------------------------------

    Date: March 31, 2021 6:44:25 JST
    From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>
    Subject: The Antiscience Movement Is Escalating, Going Global and Killing
    Thousands (Peter J. Hotez)

    Peter J. Hotez, *Scientific American*, 29 Mar 2021 [Via Dave Farber]
    Rejection of mainstream science and medicine has become a key feature of the political right in the U.S. and increasingly around the world

    <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-antiscience-movement-is-escalating-going-global-and-killing-thousands/>

    Antiscience has emerged as a dominant and highly lethal force, and one that threatens global security, as much as do terrorism and nuclear
    proliferation. We must mount a counteroffensive and build new infrastructure
    to combat antiscience, just as we have for these other more widely
    recognized and established threats. Antiscience is the rejection of
    mainstream scientific views and methods or their replacement with unproven
    or deliberately misleading theories, often for nefarious and political
    gains. It targets prominent scientists and attempts to discredit them. The destructive potential of antiscience was fully realized in the USSR under Joseph Stalin. Millions of Russian peasants died from starvation and famine during the 1930s and 1940s because Stalin embraced the pseudoscientific
    views of Trofim Lysenko that promoted catastrophic wheat and other harvest failures. Soviet scientists who did not share Lysenko's *vernalization* theories lost their positions or, like the plant geneticist, Nikolai
    Vavilov, starved to death in a gulag. Now antiscience is causing mass
    deaths once again in this Covid-19 pandemic. Beginning in the spring of
    2020, the Trump White House launched a coordinated disinformation campaign
    that dismissed the severity of the epidemic in the United States, attributed Covid deaths to other causes, claimed hospital admissions were due to a catch-up in elective surgeries, and asserted that ultimately that the
    epidemic would spontaneously evaporate. It also promoted hydroxychloroquine
    as a spectacular cure, while downplaying the importance of masks. Other authoritarian or populist regimes in Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines
    and Tanzania adopted some or all of these elements.
    [Long item truncated for RISKS. PGN]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2021 20:29:23 +0000
    From: John Colville <John.Colville@uts.edu.au>
    Subject: Nine requests assistance from government after major cyber-attack

    Channel 9 is one of the three commercial TV networks in Sydney Australia. https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/nine-s-weekend-today-fails-to-air-due-serious-technical-issues-20210328-p57ep5.html

    Media giant Nine Entertainment Co has requested the assistance of the Australian Signals Directorate after a major cyber-attack hit its broadcast systems in the early hours of Sunday morning. As Nine worked to resolve the issue, Australian Parliament was also investigating a potential cyber attack
    in Canberra on Sunday evening, which is affecting government-issued
    smartphones and tablets.

    ------------------------------

    Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2021 03:32:06 +0000
    From: John Colville <John.Colville@uts.edu.au>
    Subject: How the Nine cyber-attack is affecting the Herald

    This is related to the Channel Nine cyber-attack, which was previously
    reported because Nine Entertainment Co. also owns the *Sydney Morning Herald* newspaper, and *The Age* from Melbourne. https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-the-nine-cyber-attack-is-affecting-the-herald-20210330-p57fc3.html

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2021 03:04:07 -0600
    From: Jim Reisert AD1C <jjreisert@alum.mit.edu>
    Subject: How a Software Error Made Spain's Child COVID-19 Mortality Rate
    Skyrocket (Slate)

    Elena DeBréSlate, 25 Mar 2021 https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/excel-error-spain-child-covid-death-rate.html

    ``Even though I didn't know what the problem was, I knew it wasn't the right data,'' Soler realized once he got his hands on the Lancet paper. ``Our data
    is not worse than other countries. I would say it is even better,'' he
    says. Pediatricians across the nation contacted Spain's main research institutes, as well as hospitals and regional governments. Eventually, they discovered that the national government somehow misreported the data. It's
    hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong, but Soler says the main issue is
    that patient deaths for those over 100 were recorded as children. He
    believes that the system couldn't record three-digit numbers, and so instead registered them as one-digit. For example, a 102-year-old was registered as
    a 2-year-old in the system. Soler notes that not all centenarian deaths were misreported as children, but at least 47 were. This inflated the child mortality rate so much, Soler explains, because the number of children who
    had died was so small. Any tiny mistake causes a huge change in the data.

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2021 12:35:18 -0400
    From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
    Subject: The Underground Nuclear Test That Didn't Stay Underground
    (Atlas Obscura)

    The fallout cloud from the Baneberry test was never supposed to exist. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/do-underground-nuclear-tests-have-fallout

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2021 08:42:20 +0800
    From: Richard Stein <rmstein@ieee.org>
    Subject: Solar Geoengineering Should be Investigated, Scientists
    Say (Scientific American)

    [These musings are whole cloth fiction and satire!]

    I wonder when someone will cook the Internet-startup equivalent of Mel
    Brook's movie "The Producers" featuring a song and dance act entitled "Springtime for Terms of Service."]

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/solar-geoengineering-should-be-investigated-scientists-say/

    "A controversial policy to address climate change by artificially cooling
    the planet deserves more research, according to a panel of leading
    U.S. scientists.

    "But only if it is carefully governed."

    Careful governance, an epic oxymoron encapsulates both modern corporate behaviors and political institutional effectiveness, is the watch-word
    defining the environmental oversight and mitigation measures that protect
    all life forms, especially but not exclusively homo sapiens, against anthropogenic disaster. "What, me worry?"

    Solargeoengineering.com's IPO was a blockbuster of a blockbuster.
    Influencers begged to shill for it. They gleefully acknowledged the fiction that "doing climate good, especially via a technological fix" is a win-win grift to exploit.

    Rumors that the Chortootolliator's intellectual property for design and operation -- solargeoengineering.com's crown jewels for its self-promoted "climate-saving miracle product of our generation" -- was exfiltrated via an Elbonian phish campaign were categorically rejected as distorted.

    "A failed, but deceitfully conducted effort to scuttle the IPO attributed to disgruntled industrial competitors and agents of foreign disruption," said
    CEO Carbon Dioxide III. They added, "'Strong minds discuss ideas, average
    minds discuss events, and weak minds discuss people.' What's on your mind?"

    The public was sold. Temporarily dopamine-burst-jerked via their cellphone doom-scrolls, quick endorsement via stock purchase followed the idea: a
    gizmo that extracts climate changing effluence from the Earth's atmosphere, thereby excusing all personal sacrifice for its causation, then it must,
    above all, be convenient! Profitable? Is the day long?

    Solargeoengineering.com's corporate charter, and their product "terms of service" express a refreshingly honest and bold statement of fact, fiction,
    and software:

    a) The founding charter concludes, "Money is earned, tax-sheltered, and carefully funneled under the rubric of 'campaign finance' contributions, to preserve the fiction that this corporation is a public service, like
    Standard Oil, the old telephone monopoly, Enron, and local fire
    department. Our motto: We put the air in your lungs."

    b) Solargeoengineering.com's "About Us" summarizes its raison d'etat: "To preserve the welfare of nations, and by extension, the Earth's Gaia, our mission is to extract climate changing gases and aerosols from the
    atmosphere to curtail ecosystem erosion and accelerate its historic
    recovery. Deployed Chortootolliator's beneficially restore the ozone layer."

    [For GPT-3's sake: Noble, very noble. The lie is the truth turning fact into fiction. This statement is false.]

    c) Each country is licensed to operate solargeoengineering.com's "Chortootolliator" installation according to local, prioritized regulation
    thus ensuring that climate-change atmospheric gas reduction targets, per
    IPCC agreement, are realized according to globally optimized, time-dependent ecosystem disruption. When IPCC compliance deviates, see "terms of service"
    for sanctions. Licenses are granted subject to local taxation agreements
    based on population estimates.

    d) Solargeoengineering.com's use terms assert indemnification claims
    protecting it's employees, and especially CxOs, against a 'perp walk' into

    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)