by Alex Evans | Jan 7, 2008 | Conflict and security
Wired.com has arresting news:
Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner passenger jet may have a serious security vulnerability in its onboard computer networks that could allow passengers to access the plane’s control systems, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
The computer network in the Dreamliner’s passenger compartment, designed to give passengers in-flight internet access, is connected to the plane’s control, navigation and communication systems, an FAA report reveals.
The revelation is causing concern in security circles because the physical connection of the networks makes the plane’s control systems vulnerable to hackers. A more secure design would physically separate the two computer networks. Boeing said it’s aware of the issue and has designed a solution it will test shortly.
by Alex Evans | Jan 7, 2008 | Global system
Amidst the general hedge fund-collapsery all around us, now’s the time to refresh your memory about the unhappy case of Long Term Capital Management, which imploded in 1999. And where better to do so than with Michael Lewis’s masterly account of it in the New York Times…
by Alex Evans | Jan 7, 2008 | Off topic
Chances are good that last time you found yourself channel-surfing in the US, you will have happened across a rather fatuous news show called The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on CNN. It’s all very dramatic with pom-pa-pa-pom sort of music in the background and natty graphics. But Barry Crimmins is unimpressed – as this highly amusing counterblast demonstrates (thanks to James Wolcott):
Is there anyone sillier than Wolf Blitzer? His CNN show, The Situation Room might as well be called Wolf’s Secret, Magic, Lucky Clubhouse. On the screen below Blitzer, I half expect to see them superimpose “No Girls Allowed” (with the ‘s’ in ‘girls’ backwards) This ridiculous man’s broadcast is full of ‘strategy sessions,’ breathless ‘exclusives’ and repeated admonitions to ‘stand by.’ What else are we going to do, Wolf? There isn’t a chair anywhere in your conspicuously situated studio. Blitzer has the air of a man who never earned a game uniform in his life but is now a fanatical fantasy sports participant, with a closet full of replica jerseys. No one this side of Larry Craig does more to wear contrived machismo on his sleeve.
On the day of the Bhutto assassination, he was at his worst (well, he’s always at his worst but I happened to watch that day.) After a few dozen teases about information exclusive to the Situation Room!!, he finally revealed, “Benazir Bhutto felt if she were ever assassinated that Musharraf should be held accountable.”
No shit, Blitzer. I’d guessed as much the second I heard of the incident, before it was announced that Ms. Bhutto had died. I surmised this even though I don’t have the worldwide resources of CNN at my fingertips, let alone my own situation room, full of monitors and macho players who are self-proclaimed advisers and experts in manly things such as militarism and terrorism (redundancy noted). If I had such people wandering around my room, I’d offer them a seat, just to calm them down. Looming people get nervous. And I’d also never play Wolf’s dildoically urgent theme music. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days Blitzer and all his guests wore only loincloths and face paint.
by Alex Evans | Jan 7, 2008 | Africa, Economics and development
Following on from my post last week on Kenya’s bolt from the blue, which quoted Richard Dowden extensively, here’s a link to an excellent piece he had in yesterday’s Observer. A taster:
Anyone who expressed shock at the recent violence in such a ‘stable’ country clearly knows nothing about Kenya. The British government was caught completely by surprise, but immediately deployed the language of a former colonial power. Gordon Brown said: ‘What I want to see is…’ His advice was wise but his tone set teeth on edge. Would he have used that language when another former British colony, the USA, had a hung election in 2000?
And Britain does not speak with credibility in Kenya. In every previous election in Kenya, British diplomats turned a blind eye to fraud, intimidation and rigging with bland words such as ‘the result broadly reflected the will of the Kenyan people’. They claimed the margin of victory was so great that the cheating did not affect the result. Maybe, but this time the margin was close and the cheating did matter. Britain did little between elections to push for a fully independent electoral commission. It couldn’t – Britain’s own elections are run by the Home Office. Instead, it poured aid into Kenya, even after members of the Moi and Kibaki governments were seen stealing hundreds of millions of pounds in broad daylight.
Ever since it bought into the aid agency view of Africa – ‘all Africa needs is aid’ – the British government has carefully reduced its capacity for understanding the continent. You do not, it seems, need to understand the poor in order to save them. In 2005, the ‘Year of Africa’, it closed three embassies on the continent and abolished Foreign Office country desk officers who built the institutional memory of specific countries. Unless you understand Africa and how it works, you cannot help it.
by Alex Evans | Jan 7, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, East Asia and Pacific
This year’s G8 summit is brought to you by Japan, who as David Pilling reports have decided to hold the event in a uniquely Japanese-sounding venue: the Windsor Hotel on Hokkaido.
As with the Germany G8 at Heiligendamm last year, Japan plans to put climate change front and centre – an issue on which, Pilling reports, “Japan likes to feel it has strong leadership credentials”.
Japan has among the world’s most advanced energy-saving technology and lent its name to the Kyoto Protocol, a breakthrough agreement, albeit a flawed one. That gives it the moral authority, officials say, to act as a bridge between the far-flung positions of the US, Europe, China and India.
But, he goes on, that strategy is not without challenges:
Japanese officials admit that their “bridging” strategy is fraught with difficulties. At home, the government is handcuffed by the intransigent attitude of business, which insists on voluntary cuts rather than mandatory targets reinforced by a carbon tax. Partly as a result, Japan is far from achieving its Kyoto targets and is likely to make up much of the difference by buying emission rights.
The debate is also moving very quickly, say officials. The growing scientific and political consensus on the urgency of tackling global warming could rapidly make Tokyo’s emphasis on technology and voluntary national targets out of date. Some Japanese officials say that, by July, serious discussion may well have shifted to the cap-and-trade mechanisms favoured by Europe.
International development, too, figures heavily among Japanese priorities. Fletcher Tembo has a good discussion of this on the Overseas Development Institute’s blog, where he observes that while the midpoint for the Millennium Development Goals has just passed, levels of aid to developing countries still haven’t increased significantly – at least, not after debt relief (supposed in theory to be additional to aid) and aid to Afghanistan and Iraq have been taken off the balance sheet.
But in practice, there’s every chance that events will buffet the Japanese agenda – especially if oil prices continue their upward march and the solvency crunch continues to worsen. Meantime, the elephant in the room continues to be: how substantive a discussion of climate and energy is it actually possible to have without China and India as full participants (rather than guests invited for canapes)? Quite a challenge for Yasuo Fukuda, the new PM – Japan’s third in a year…
PS. As preparations for the summit (to be held from 7 – 9 July) get going in earnest, the best website to watch will – as ever – be that of the G8 Information Centre at the University of Toronto. Meanwhile, here’s the official Japanese website too, where the ‘What’s New’ section today helpfully informs us that the domain name has been renewed for 2008. Lucky, that.
