Security

Chemists Use AI to Decode and Preserve Berlin Wall

Leave a comment

Here’s a novel approach to preserving the wall everyone wanted to tear down.

The team first examined 15 paint chips and observed that all had a maximum of two or three layers of acrylic paint – brushstrokes as opposed to spray paint. Then, they used Raman spectroscopy to characterise the chips and identified titanium white, azopigments (yellow and red chips) and lead chromate (green) as the primary pigments present.

By mixing common, commercial paint with titanium white the scientists quantified the dye dilution in mixtures used by the artists. They trained a machine learning algorithm to predict the ratio between the pigments using Raman data at various pigment concentrations. From the dataset, they extracted wavenumber values as features while concentration values served as labels. Thus, a custom neural network was built for regression tasks, predicting pigment concentrations. It was discovered that the paint chips contained titanium white and up to 75% pigments, depending on the piece of wall from which it was sourced. The results rivalled those achieved using laboratory equipment.

Apparently the Stasi were lax in recording paint methods.

Poetry, Security

MI5 Christmas Story

1 Comment

Perhaps for irony, but really reasons unknown, British intelligence posted their Christmas Story poem on a proprietary closed American surveillance platform, instead of just on the UK web.

Here’s their awkward intro complaining publicly about being at work:

We thought it high time [an English actor] swapped Slough House for Thames House and while he was briefly away from his [TV show], we asked him to record a special Christmas message from all of us to all of you.

Our staff will be working throughout this festive period to keep the UK safe from national security threats.

From everyone at MI5, we wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Thank you to [American technology company producing TV shows] and Gary Oldman (giseleschmidtofficial)

And here’s the text of the video:

Twas the night before Christmas
when all through Thames House
not a creature was stirring
Just the click of a mouse.

Then footsteps on stairwells
then flickering screens
the clackety keyboards
of a hundred machines.

The hustle
the bustle
the hive of activity
not the typical scene
of your Christmas nativity.

So while people at home
wrap last minute gifts
The staff inside Thames
will be changing their shifts.

From us all at five
we wish you festive delight
Happy Christmas to all
and to all a good night.

I’ve compressed the video for you too here, because I couldn’t figure out why it was 90% larger than necessary… unless meant as some kind of test. Surely I’m failing His Majesty somehow with this version. God save the bits!

Right, let’s cut to the chase. What kind of intelligence service publicly moans about working Christmas while others enjoy gifts? It’s giving serious disgruntled “could have been a contender” energy, which is exactly what you don’t want from people supposedly dedicated to public service.

Although, to be fair, that is kind of default British thinking lately.

The false divide between “people at home” and “staff inside Thames” is a particularly galling mistake. Last I checked, MI5 officers also have homes, families, and presumably their own gifts to wrap. They’re not some separate species of office-bound soulless martyrs. This weird self-pitying tone suggests they see themselves as both superior (keeping everyone safe!) and somehow victimized (stuck at work!), a rather childish having-your-Christmas-cake-and-eating-it-too situation.

The mechanical imagery isn’t helping either. “Clackety keyboards of a hundred machines” sounds less like a crucial national security operation and more like a snarky dig at being cogs in clogs stuck doing data entry. If you’re going to be the nation’s domestic intelligence service, maybe don’t present yourself as a bunch of dejected cubicle workers jealous of everyone else’s jobs?

What’s perhaps most tone-deaf is broadcasting this woe-is-me narrative through an American streaming platform’s social channels. Nothing says “protecting British sovereignty” quite like whining about your Christmas shift schedule on Silicon Valley’s surveillance infrastructure, right?

If they wanted to actually connect with the public, they might have acknowledged all the other essential workers keeping the country running during the holidays such as healthcare workers, emergency services, power plant operators, transport staff. You know, show some genuine awareness of shared service rather than this weird “look at us, the one and only unsung heroes chained to our comfy warm keyboards while you ungrateful lot open presents” routine.

Instead, we get what reads like a passive-aggressive Slack message elevated to the status of holiday tradition. It’s rather like finding out James Bond’s main grievance isn’t SPECTRE but having to work Boxing Day – hardly the image of dedicated public service they presumably were aiming for.

Let’s be honest, even if MI5.

If you’re in British intelligence and your Christmas message makes you sound like Bob Cratchit having a sulk on Microsoft LinkedIn, you might want to reconsider your public communications strategy.

May I politely suggest…

Twas the night before Christmas at Thames House anew
Where spies at their desks try to prove something true:
That empire’s long gone, and we’ve learned from fascist pigs‘ past
Those evil blunders? Not making them last!

The screens they glow softly, the keyboards still click
(We’re tracking real threats now, not just being thick)
No more toppling leaders for afternoon tea
Just guarding what’s left of our democracy

We’ve bungled some cases, lost files in the queue
Made friends with some villains we probably shouldn’t do
But tonight as Big Ben chimes its wintertime song
We’re trying our best not to get it all wrong

Yes, other folks serve through this midwinter night
From A&E doctors to pilots in flight
We’re just one small part of this citizens’ team
(Though our office party’s much more bland, it would seem)

So here’s to good grace and to doing what’s right
No more playing empire on this Christmas night
From all here at Five, watching screens through the frost:
This year we’ll try harder to not get things lost!

Food, Security

92% Drop in Local Output Makes Florida Dependent on California for Oranges

1 Comment

Florida seems to be losing something that it believed had made it special. Fresh local oranges, a simple pleasure that defined the state, tell the story.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) recently recounted how natural disasters and diseases have reduced Florida’s orange production by 92% since the 2003–04 season.

Roadside stands and backyard trees once offered fruit that put big box store oranges to shame. Today they are essentially gone without any evidence of attempts to preserve them. This collapse isn’t just about agriculture, because it’s about a state trading its soul for generic tasteless development ruining quality of life. The forces killing orange groves — anti-science politics, climate change, unchecked growth, and quick profits — are erasing Florida’s actual distinctive character, replacing it with tepid chain stores in strip malls and cookie-cutter suburbs that could be anywhere… importing California oranges.