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# nick        = computers-are-bad
# url         = https://feeds.twtxt.net/computers-are-bad/twtxt.txt
# type        = rss
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# avatar      = 
# description = A newsletter on technology and its problems and also whatever else
# updated_at  = 2024-04-05T18:56:04Z
#
2022-10-22T00:00:00Z	**2022-10-22 wireless burglary**
Long time no see! The great thing about _Computers Are Bad_ is that you get
exactly what you pay for, and there's a reason I'm not on Substack. Rest
assured I am still alive, just very occupied with client's AWS problems and
the pleasantly changing weather here in New Mexico.

Speaking of pleasantly changing weather, it's the time of year when returning
diurnal temperature swings start causing the shock sensors start 'to fall off
my windows. I could provide a lengthy discourse on whic ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-10-22-wireless-burglary.html)
2022-09-25T00:00:00Z	**2022-09-25 the nevada national security site pt 4**
[part 1](https://computer.rip/2022-09-11-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-1.html) \|
[part 2](https://computer.rip/2022-09-13-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-2.html) \|
[part 3](https://computer.rip/2022-09-15-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-3.html) \|
you are here

And now, the conclusion.

Lunch at the Nevada National Security Site is a strange experience of its own.
Our coach dropped us off at the Bistro, a second, smaller caf ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-09-25-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-4.html)
2022-09-15T00:00:00Z	**2022-09-15 the nevada national security site pt 3**
[part 1](https://computer.rip/2022-09-11-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-1.html) \|
[part 2](https://computer.rip/2022-09-13-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-2.html) \|
you are here \|
[part 4](https://computer.rip/2022-09-25-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-4.html)

I said up front that the NNSS remains in use for several different purposes,
although the level of activity today is not nearly as high as it once was. To
my best abi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-09-15-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-3.html)
2022-09-13T00:00:00Z	**2022-09-13 the nevada national security site pt 2**
[part 1](https://computer.rip/2022-09-11-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-1.html) \|
you are here \|
[part 3](https://computer.rip/2022-09-15-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-3.html) \|
[part 4](https://computer.rip/2022-09-25-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-4.html)

After our time milling around the Mercury cafeteria, it was back aboard the
coach to enter the test site proper. As our guide explained, the NNSS can be
divided into  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-09-13-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-2.html)
2022-09-11T00:00:00Z	**2022-09-11 the nevada national security site pt 1**
you are here \|
[part 2](https://computer.rip/2022-09-13-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-2.html) \|
[part 3](https://computer.rip/2022-09-15-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-3.html) \|
[part 4](https://computer.rip/2022-09-25-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-4.html)

I promised a travelogue, and here we go. I'm not exactly a travel writer, but I
was recently able to visit a place that's fairly difficult to get to, so I
think it's  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-09-11-the-nevada-national-security-site-pt-1.html)
2022-08-22T00:00:00Z	**2022-08-22 preventing loss dot jp2**
Programming note: Sorry for the infrequent posts lately, I have been traveling
and starting a new job. Probably the next thing I post will be a report on some
of that travel, which you will hopefully find interesting.

Previously on Deep Space Nine, we discussed the landscape of common retail
EAS systems: electromagnetic, acousto-magnetic, and RFID. I now want to
extend on this by discussing some peripheral systems that serve as part of the
larger retail loss prevention te ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-08-22-preventing-loss-dot-jp2.html)
2022-07-21T00:00:00Z	**2022-07-21 preventing loss dot jpeg**
Long time no post, or at least it feels that way! I have returned from a long
vacation in a strange foreign country where the money is made of plastic, and
I am slowly recovering from the tactile disturbance this caused. As tends to
happen I ended up thinking a lot about the small details of international
interoperation, and the issue of currency is an interesting one. I think my
next post will be a bit about the mechanics of the relatively seamless ability
to spend US f ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-07-21-preventing-loss-dot-jpeg.html)
2022-06-22T00:00:00Z	**2022-06-22 thermostats**
Let's discuss the humble thermostat. You probably have one in your house,
and it probably connects to a set of wires. If you've ever replaced your
thermostat, you've probably found those wires a little irritating due to
the lack of well standardized nomenclature for identifying them. This is
particularly clear in the new generation of smart thermostats which attempt
to be "consumer-friendly" to install, and thus must have sort of complex
install wizards (InstallShield (R) for Thermostats) just to ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-06-22-thermostats.html)
2022-06-10T00:00:00Z	**2022-06-10 analog phones**
The greatest trend in telephone technology for the last decade or so has been
the shift to all-IP. While this change is occurring inside telco networks as
well (albeit more slowly), it's most visible in the form of IP-based end-user
communications devices. In other words, the ubiquitous office IP phone.

Office IP phones have gone through various forms as vendors have come and gone,
but I still tend to picture the Cisco 7900 series as the prototypical example.
Some of this association probabl ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-06-10-analog-phones.html)
2022-05-10T00:00:00Z	**2022-05-10 amateur hour**
So we've talked about radio spectrum regulation in some detail, including the
topic of equipment authorization (EA)---the requirement, under 47 CFR, that
almost all electronics receive authorization from the FCC prior to sale. We've
also talked about the amateur radio service (ARS, 47 CFR 97), and I've hinted
that these two topics collide in an unusual way. So this of course raises the
question: does amateur radio equipment require authorization? Or, more fun to
type, does EA apply to ARS?

The ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-05-10-amateur-hour.html)
2022-04-22T00:00:00Z	**2022-04-22 regulating radiation**
One^wTwo days late for 4/20, I return to discuss equipment authorization. This
is a direct followup to my last post about unlicensed radio. I apologize for my
uncharacteristic decision to actually provide a promised follow-up in a prompt
manner, and give you my assurances that it's unlikely to happen again. I will
return to my usual pattern of saying "this is the beginning of a series" and
then forgetting about the topic for two years.

But equipment authorization is sort of an  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-04-22-regulating-radiation.html)
2022-04-14T00:00:00Z	**2022-04-14 unlicensed radio**
I had a strong feeling that I had written a post at some point in the past
that touched on license-free radio services and bands. I can't find it now,
so maybe it was all a dream. I wanted to expand on the topic, so here we are
either way.

As a general principle, radio licensing in the United States started out being
based on the operator. As an individual or organization, you could obtain a
license that entitled you to transmit within certain specifications. You could
use whatever equ ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-04-14-unlicensed-radio.html)
2022-04-01T00:00:00Z	**2022-04-01 Bomb Alarm System**
Today, as New Mexico celebrates 4/20 early, seems an appropriate time to talk
about bhang... or rather, the bhangmeter.

The name of the bhangmeter seems to have been a joke by its designer and Nobel
laureate Frederick Reines, although I must confess that I have never totally
gotten it (perhaps I simply haven't been high enough). In any case, the
bhangmeter is one of the earliest instruments designed for the detection of a
nuclear detonation. In short, a bhangmeter is a photosensor wi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-04-01-Bomb-Alarm-System.html)
2022-03-24T00:00:00Z	**2022-03-24 VoWiFi**
I haven't written for a bit, in part because I am currently on vacation in
Mexico. Well, here's a short piece about some interesting behavior I've noticed
here.

I use a cellular carrier with very good international roaming support, so for
the most part I just drive into Mexico and my phone continues to work as if
nothing has changed. I do get a notification shortly after crossing the border
warning that data might not work for a few minutes; I believe (but am not
certain) that this is because Google Fi us ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-03-24-VoWiFi.html)
2022-03-12T00:00:00Z	**2022-03-12 an 800 scam in short**
## A non-diagetic aside

This is an experiment in format for me: I would like to have something like
twitter for thoughts that are interesting but don't necessarily make a whole
post. The problem is that I'm loathe to use Twitter and I somehow find most of
the federated solutions to be worse, although I'm feeling sort of good about
[Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.social/jbcrawford). But of course it's not amenable to text.

I would just make these blog posts, but blog posts get emai ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-03-12-an-800-scam-in-short.html)
2022-03-05T00:00:00Z	**2022-03-05 high definition radio**
One of the great joys of the '00s was the tendency of marketers to apply the
acronym "HD" to anything they possibly could. The funniest examples of this
phenomenon are those where HD doesn't even stand for "High Definition," but
instead for something a bit contrived like "Hybrid Digital." This is the case
with HD Radio.

For those readers outside of these United States and Canada (actually Mexico
as well), HD Radio might be a bit unfamiliar. In Europe, for example, a
standard  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-03-05-high-definition-radio.html)
2022-02-19T00:00:00Z	**2022-02-19 PCM**
I started writing a post about media container formats, and then I got severely
sidetracked by explaining how MPEG elementary streams aren't in a container but
still have most of the features of containers and had a hard time getting back
to topic until I made the decision that I ought to start down the media rabbit
hole with something more basic. So let's talk about an ostensibly basic audio
format, PCM.

PCM stands for Pulse Code Modulation and, fundamentally, it is a basic
technique for digitization of analog ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-02-19-PCM.html)
2022-02-14T00:00:00Z	**2022-02-14 long lines in the Mojave**
I have sometimes struggled to justify my love for barren deserts. Why is it
that my favorite travel destinations consist of hundreds of miles of sandy
expanse? Today, I'm going to show you one reason: rural deserts have a habit of
accumulating history. What happens in the desert stays there---in corporeal
form. Slow growth of vegetation, little erosion, and extraordinarily low
property values turn vast, empty deserts into time capsules... if you spend
enough time looking ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-02-14-long-lines-in-the-Mojave.html)
2022-01-24T00:00:00Z	**2022-01-24 the smart modem**
I think I've mentioned occasionally that various devices, mostly cellular
modems, just use the Hayes or AT command set. Recently I obtained a GPS
tracking device (made by Queclink) that is, interestingly, fully configured via
the Hayes command set. It's an example of a somewhat newer trend of converging
the functionality of IoT devices into the modem baseband. But what is this
Hayes command set anyway?

Some of you are no doubt familiar with the "acoustic coupler," a device that
has two r ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-01-24-the-smart-modem.html)
2022-01-16T00:00:00Z	**2022-01-16 peer to peer but mostly the main peer**
I have admitted on HN to sometimes writing computer.rip posts which are
extensions of my HN comments, and I will make that admission here as well. A
discussion recently came up that relates to a topic I am extremely interested
in: the fundamental loss of peer-to-peer capability on the internet and various
efforts to implement peer-to-peer distributed systems on top of the internet.

Of course, as is usual, someone questioned my contention that t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-01-16-peer-to-peer-but-mostly-the-main-peer.html)
2022-11-16T00:00:00Z	**2022-11-16 local newspaper**
And now for something completely different.

Today in the mail I received the latest issue of the _New Mexico Sun_, a lovely
local newspaper that I have never heard of, nor received, before. An oddity of
the addressing strongly suggests that it was sent based on the same address
list used for a lot of the political advertising I've received, and the
contents are... well, we'll go over that in detail in a moment, but I
immediately got the impression that this "newspaper" was actually a pie ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-11-16-local-newspaper.html)
2022-11-23T00:00:00Z	**2022-11-23 enlightenment and lighting controls**
One of my chief interests is lighting. This manifests primarily as no end of
tinkering with inexpensive consumer IoT devices, because I am cheap and running
new cabling is time consuming. I did nearly end up using DMX for my
under-cabinet lighting but ultimately saw sense and stuck to a protocol that is
even more unfamiliar to the average consumer, Z-Wave.

I worked in theater (at a university conference center) only briefly but the
fact that it was ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-11-23-enlightenment-and-lighting-controls.html)
2022-11-27T00:00:00Z	**2022-11-27 over the horizon radar**
One if the most interesting things about studying history is noting the
technologies that did _not_ shape the present. We tend to think of new
inventions as permanent fixtures, but of course the past is littered with
innovations that became obsolete and fell out of production. Most of these
at least get the time to become well-understood, but there are cases where
it's possible that even the short-term potential of new technologies was
never reached because of the pace at wh ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-11-27-over-the-horizon-radar.html)
2022-12-04T00:00:00Z	**2022-12-04 over the horizon radar pt II**
Previously on Deep Space Nine, we discussed the MUSIC and MADRE
over-the-horizon radar (OTH) programs. MUSIC and especially MADRE validated the
concept of an HF radar using ionospheric (often called "skywave" in the radio
art) propagation, with a novel hybrid digital-analog computerized signal
processing system. MADRE was a tremendous success, ultimately able to detect
ICBM launches, aircraft, and ship traffic in the North Atlantic region. What
was needed next se ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-12-04-over-the-horizon-radar-pt-II.html)
2022-12-11T00:00:00Z	**2022-12-11 over the horizon radar pt III**
Most OTH radar have faded into obscurity since the end of their era of
relevance (something we will get to in the chronology soon). One, though, looms
above all the others. This is mostly a figurative expression, but it's also
literally true to some degree, as it's a pretty tall one. I am referring of
course to Duga, or as some might know it, the brain scorcher.

As I have previously mentioned, development of OTH radar proceeded in the USSR
more or less in sync ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-12-11-over-the-horizon-radar-pt-III.html)
2022-12-17T00:00:00Z	**2022-12-17 the keyboard controller**
One of the more common arguments you hear in contemporary computer security
circles is about hardware trust and embedded controllers. Technologies like
Intel ME, the ARM Secure Element, TPMs, etc, remind us that the architecture
of the modern computer is complex and not entirely under our control. A typical
modern computer contains a multitude of different independent processors, some
running relatively complete software stacks. They come from different vendors,
serve diff ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-12-17-the-keyboard-controller.html)
2022-12-24T00:00:00Z	**2022-12-24 santa tracking**
Let's talk about a different kind of radar: the one notionally pointed at the
north pole. That's right, it's a Christmas post. I will keep it mercifully
short, and follow up soon with the article I wrote most of today (not at all
Christmas themed) before a tangent reminded me of this topic.

For decades now, NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command, has operated
the "Santa Tracker." This service, ostensibly backed by NORAD's radar and
satellite remote sensing, updates children on Santa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2022-12-24-santa-tracking.html)
2023-01-02T00:00:00Z	**2023-01-02 ANT plus is PAN for ants**
One of the most interesting areas of modern consumer technology, to me, are
low-power, low-range wireless networks. This category of network protocols were
historically referred to as Personal Area Networks, or PANs. I say
"historically" here because the term has never really had any use among
consumers---I wager very few people on the street would be able to name a
single PAN protocol, even though most people use one of them regularly. Part of
the reason for this state  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-01-02-ANT-plus-is-PAN-for-ants.html)
2023-01-16T00:00:00Z	**2023-01-16 huff-duff**
We've talked a fair amount about HF radio recently, in the context of OTH
radar. Recall that an extremely useful property of HF radio here is that HF
frequencies can reflect off of the upper layers of the atmosphere, causing them
to rebound towards earth at a range much further than the horizon. This
behavior, called ionospheric propagation or (more commonly among radio
operators) skywave propagation, is the best way to achieve radio communication
over ranges much longer than line of sight, without t ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-01-16-huff-duff.html)
2023-01-29T00:00:00Z	**2023-01-29 the parallel port**
A few days ago, on a certain orange website, I came across an article about an
[improvised parallel printer capture device](https://tomverbeure.github.io/2023/01/24/Fake-Parallel-Printer-Capture-Tool-HW.html).
This contains the line:

> There are other projects out there, but when you google for terms such as
> "parallel port to usb", they drown in a sea of "USB to parallel port"
> results!

While the author came up with a perfectly elegant and working solution, on
reading that articl ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-01-29-the-parallel-port.html)
2023-02-07T00:00:00Z	**2023-02-07 secret government telephone numbers**
Very nearly a year ago, I wrote a popular article about [secret military\
telephone\
buttons](https://computer.rip/2022-01-01-secret-military-telephone-buttons.html).
To be clear, the "secret" here was a joke and these buttons are in fact well
documented. The buttons I was talking about were the AUTOVON call precedence
buttons, used for a five-level prioritization scheme within the AUTOVON
military telephone network. The labels on these buttons, FO, ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-02-07-secret-government-telephone-numbers.html)
2023-02-13T00:00:00Z	**2023-02-13 my homelab**
I have always found the term "homelab" a little confusing. It's a bit like the
residential version of "on-premises cloud," in that it seems to presuppose that
a lab is the _normal_ place that you find computer equipment. Of course I get
that "homelab" is usually used by those who take pride in the careful
workmanship of their home installation, and I am not one of those people.

Welcome to _Computers Are Bad_ \- **in color**.

![closet rack](https://computer.rip/f/hl_1.jpg)

They say that necessity ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-02-13-my-homelab.html)
2023-02-17T00:00:00Z	**2023-02-17 something up there pt II**
[As we discussed previously](https://computer.rip/2023-02-14-something-up-there-pt-I.html),
the search for UAP is often contextualized in terms of the events of 2017:
the public revelation of the AATIP and alien-hunting efforts by Robert Bigelow
and Tom DeLonge. While widely publicized, these programs seem to have lead to
very little. I believe the termination of the AATIP (which lead to the creation
of TTSA) to be a result of the AATIP's failure to address the DoD's act ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-02-17-something-up-there-pt-II.html)
2023-03-13T00:00:00Z	**2023-03-13 the door close button**
This will probably be a short one, and I know I haven't written for a while,
but it has always been the case that you get what you pay for and _Computers
Are Bad_ is nothing if not affordable. Still, this is a topic on which I am
moderately passionate and so I can probably stretch it to an implausible
length.

Elevator control panels have long featured two buttons labeled "door open" and
"door close." One of these buttons does pretty much what says on the label
(although I und ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-03-13-the-door-close-button.html)
2023-03-24T00:00:00Z	**2023-03-24 docker**
Lately I tend to stick to topics that are historic by at least twenty years,
and that does have a lot of advantages. But I am supposedly a DevOps
professional, and so I will occasionally indulge in giving DevOps advice... or
at least opinions, which are sort of like advice but with less of a warranty.

There's been a lot of discussion lately about Docker, mostly about their
boneheaded reversal following their boneheaded apology for their boneheaded
decision to eliminate free teams. I don't really care much ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-03-24-docker.html)
2023-04-10T00:00:00Z	**2023-04-10 solving problems with chatgpt**
One of the foundational goals of computer technology, at least as understood by
popular culture, is to automate away our jobs. When your job is (put simply) to
get computers to work correctly, there's sort of an irony to this view of
things. Still, just within the span of my career there have been technological
advancements that have both automated away parts of my job (Puppet might be an
example here, the prior art of CFEngine notwithstanding) and given me ple ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-04-10-solving-problems-with-chatgpt.html)
2023-04-20T00:00:00Z	**2023-04-20 different kinds of differential**
On the front page of HN today was an [article with a confusing headline],
"Farmers 'crippled' by satellite failure as GPS-guided tractors grind to a
halt." Of course the headline doesn't actually say this, but it does seem
to imply that there has been some kind of failure of GPS.

This is not quite as outlandish as it might sound. The GPS system, maintained
by the US Space Force, has occasionally suffered from serious funding shortages
and bureaucratic para ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-04-20-different-kinds-of-differential.html)
2023-04-27T00:00:00Z	**2023-04-27 los alamos - compound to county pt I**
This weekend, I found myself staying in Los Alamos for a volunteer role in
which I judge children on the quality of their software. Clearly this is not
the kind of opportunity I would turn down, but I also always take an excuse to
drive back up the hill. I only lived in Los Alamos briefly, but it left a big
impression. It's a unique place in many ways, born of a rather unusual history.

The role that Los Alamos as a place, Project Y and the Los Al ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-04-27-los-alamos---compound-to-county-pt-I.html)
2023-04-30T00:00:00Z	**2023-04-30 los alamos - compound to county pt II**
Where we left off, Los Alamos had become a county, but the town itself
continued to be directly administered by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
The Atomic Energy Communities Act (AECA) mandated the AEC to dispose of the
towns it owned by transferring the property to private owners or government
agencies. This included not just the individual houses (which had all been
rented by AEC) but utilities, parks, and other municipal property.

In 196 ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-04-30-los-alamos---compound-to-county-pt-II.html)
2023-05-07T00:00:00Z	**2023-05-07 electrical characteristics of telephone lines**
Let's take a break from our boring topic of regional history to focus instead
on an even more boring topic: implementation details of telephone lines.

The conventional "copper pair" analog telephone line is fading away. The FCC
has begun to authorize abandonment of copper outside plant in major markets,
and telcos are applying to perform such abandonment in more and more areas. The
replacement is IP, part of the overall trend of ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-05-07-electrical-characteristics-of-telephone-lines.html)
2023-06-02T00:00:00Z	**2023-06-02 the reinvention of owens lake**
Programming note: In an effort to introduce an exciting new social aspect to
Computers Are Bad (a functional necessity to appease early-stage investor
demands for "engagement")¸ I am launching a Matrix room for CAB readers.
You can join it! Do whatever you do to join rooms in your client with

# computer.rip:waffle.tech

A few months ago I found out (via the rare sort of mailing list I actually stay
subscribed to) that the [Center for Land Use Interpretation](h ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-06-02-the-reinvention-of-owens-lake.html)
2023-06-07T00:00:00Z	**2023-06-07 something up there - nasa and uaps**
## A brief note on Grusch

First, a disclaimer of sorts: I am posting another article on UAPs, yet I am
not addressing the recent claims by David Grusch. This is for a couple of
reasons. First, I am skeptical of Grusch. He is not the first seemingly
well-positioned former intelligence official to make such claims, and I think
there's a real possibility that we are looking at the next Bob Lazar. Even
without impugning his character by comparison to Laz ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-06-07-something-up-there---nasa-and-uaps.html)
2023-06-12T00:00:00Z	**2023-06-12 radio on the tv**
Like many people in my generation, my memories of youth are heavily defined by
cable television. I was fortunate enough to have a _premium_ cable package in
my childhood home, Comcast's early digital service based on Motorola equipment.
It included a perk that fascinated me but never made that much sense: Music
Choice. Music Choice was around 20 channels, somewhere in the high numbers, of
still images with music. It was really ad-free, premium radio, but in the era
before widespread adopt ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-06-12-radio-on-the-tv.html)
2023-06-30T00:00:00Z	**2023-06-30 calling in the alarm**
I currently find myself on vacation in the Canadian Rockies, where internet is
hard to come by. But here's something short while I'm temporarily back in the
warm embrace of 5G: more about burglar alarms. I recently gave a presentation
on this topic and I'll probably record it for YouTube when I'm back home, but
I think the time has finally come to write a post on a specific and niche
element of intrusion alarms that I find particularly interesting: alarm
reporting protocols.

Le ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-06-30-calling-in-the-alarm.html)
2023-07-10T00:00:00Z	**2023-07-10 the tragedy of beatrice foods**
Occasionally, research into the history of telephony takes you into some
strange places. There are conspiracy theories, of course, and there are people
who insist on their version of events so incessantly that details of dates and
places can become heated arguments. There is also the basic nature of the
internet: the internet has a health of historical information but it is
scattered across many sources of varying quality. Part of the role of the
historian has  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-07-10-the-tragedy-of-beatrice-foods.html)
2023-07-15T00:00:00Z	**2023-07-15 underwater ears everywhere**
You may have seen some recent press coverage about events surrounding the
_Titanic_ and another notable loss at sea. I'm not going to rehash much of
anything around the _Titan_ because it's sort of an exhaustively covered topic
in the mainstream press... although I will defend the Logitech controller by
noting that Playstation-style controllers are extremely popular interfaces in
robotics and 3D navigation (two symmetric analog sticks, unlike other major
game control ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-07-15-underwater-ears-everywhere.html)
2023-07-29T00:00:00Z	**2023-07-29 Free Public WiFi**
Remember Free Public WiFi?

Once, many years ago, I stayed on the 62nd floor of the Westin Peachtree Plaza
in Atlanta, Georgia. This was in the age when the price of a hotel room was
directly correlated with the price of the WiFi service, and as a high school
student I was not prepared to pay in excess of $15 a day for the internet. As I
remember, a Motel 6 that was not blocks away but within line of sight ended up
filling the role. But even up there, 62 floors from the ground, there wa ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-07-29-Free-Public-WiFi.html)
2023-08-07T00:00:00Z	**2023-08-07 STIRred AND SHAKEN**
In a couple of days, I pack up my bags to head for DEFCON. In a rare moment of
pre-planning, perhaps spurred by boredom, I looked through the schedule to see
what's in store in the world of telephony. There is a workshop on SS7, of
course [1], plenty of content on cellular, but as far as I see nothing on the
biggest topic in telecom security: STIR/SHAKEN.

I can venture a guess as to why: STIR/SHAKEN is boring. So here we go!

## The Nature of Circuit Switching

Understanding today' ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-08-07-STIRred-AND-SHAKEN.html)
2023-08-19T00:00:00Z	**2023-08-19 meanwhile elsewhere**
I had meant to write something today, but I'm just getting over a case of the
COVID and had a hard time getting to it. Instead I did the yard work, edited
and uploaded a YouTube video, and then spewed out a Cohost thread as long as a
blog post. So in lieu of your regularly scheduled content, I'd like to link you
to [the Cohost thread on the Monticello AT&T microwave\
site](https://cohost.org/jbcrawford/post/2552276-why-didn-t-i-make-th)
(complete with pictures!) and the [YouTube v ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-08-19-meanwhile-elsewhere.html)
2023-09-03T00:00:00Z	**2023-09-03 plastic money**
You will sometimes hear someone say, in a loose conceptual sense, that credit
cards have money in them. Of course we know that that isn't the case; our
modern plastic card payment network relies on online transactions where the
balance tracking and authorization decisions happen within a financial
institution that actually has the money (whether it's your money or credit).
There is an alternate approach though, one which has historically been
associated with terms like "epurse" in the technol ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-09-03-plastic-money.html)
2023-09-10T00:00:00Z	**2023-09-10 the Essex GWEN site**
Programming note: this post is _in color._ I will not debase myself to the
level of sending HTML email, so if you receive _Computers Are Bad_ by email
and want the benefit of the pictures, consider reading this online instead
(the link is at the top of the email).

In the aftermath of a nuclear attack, United States military and government
policy focuses on one key goal: retaliation. Nuclear policy has long been based
on the concept of a credible deterrent, often referred to as mu ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-09-10-the-Essex-GWEN-site.html)
2023-10-03T00:00:00Z	**2023-10-03 overheard overhead**
Let's talk about overhead paging. The concept goes by various names: paging,
public address, even intercom, although the accuracy of the latter term can be
questionable. It's probably one of the aspects of business telephone systems
that gets the most public attention, on account of the many stories (both true
and mythical) of the exploits of people who have figured out the paging
extension at a given WalMart.

Some form of public address is about as old as telephony, but voice pagi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-10-03-overheard-overhead.html)
2023-10-09T00:00:00Z	**2023-10-09 prolific counterfeiting**
I'm working on a side project right now, one of several, which involves
telematics devices (essentially GPS trackers with i/o) from a fairly reputable
Chinese manufacturer. The device is endlessly configurable and so, like you see
with a lot of radios, it has a UART for programming. The manufacturer provided
a cable for this purpose, and when I plug it into my laptop running Windows, it
appears in the device manager as "DOES NOT SUPPORT WINDOWS 11." What a world.

This is  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-10-09-prolific-counterfeiting.html)
2023-10-15T00:00:00Z	**2023-10-15 go.com**
The late 1990s were an exciting time in technology, at least if you don't look
_too_ late. The internet, as a consumer service, really hit its stride as
major operating systems incorporated network stacks and shipped with web
browsers, dial-up consumer ISPs proliferated, and the media industry began to
view computers as a new medium for content delivery.

It was also a chaotic time: the internet was very new to consumers, and no one
was quite sure how best to structure it. "Walled garden" services like AOL ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-10-15-go.com.html)
2023-10-22T00:00:00Z	**2023-10-22 cooler screens**
Audible even over the squeal of an HVAC blower with a suffering belt, the whine
of small, high velocity fans pervades the grocery side of this Walgreens. Were
they always this loud? I'm not sure; some of the fans sound distinctly
unhealthy. Still, it's a familiar kind of noise to anyone who regularly works
around kilowatt quantities of commercial IT equipment. Usually, though, it's a
racket set aside for equipment rooms and IDF closets---not the refrigerator
aisle.

The cooler screens came  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-10-22-cooler-screens.html)
2023-11-04T00:00:00Z	**2023-11-04 nuclear safety**
Nuclear weapons are complex in many ways. The basic problem of achieving
criticality is difficult on its own, but deploying nuclear weapons as
operational military assets involves yet more challenges. Nuclear weapons must
be safe and reliable, even with the rough handling and potential of tampering
and theft that are intrinsic to their military use.

Early weapon designs somewhat sidestepped the problem by being stored in
inoperational condition. During the early phase of the Cold War, most ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-11-04-nuclear-safety.html)
2023-11-19T00:00:00Z	**2023-11-19 Centrex**
I have always been fascinated by the PABX - the private automatic branch
exchange, often shortened to "PBX" in today's world where the "automatic" is
implied. (Relatively) modern small and medium business PABXs of the type I like
to collect are largely solid-state devices that mount on the wall. Picture a
cabinet that's maybe two feet wide, a foot and half tall, and five inches deep.
That's a pretty accurate depiction of my Comdial hybrid key/PABX system,
recovered from the offices of a bankrupt publishe ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-11-19-Centrex.html)
2023-11-25T00:00:00Z	**2023-11-25 the curse of docker**
I'm heading to Las Vegas for re:invent soon, perhaps the most boring type of
industry extravaganza there could be. In that spirit, I thought I would write
something quick and oddly professional: I'm going to complain about Docker.

Packaging software is one of those fundamental problems in system
administration. It's so important, so influential on the way a system is used,
that package managers are often the main identity of operating systems.
Consider Windows: the operating syst ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-11-25-the-curse-of-docker.html)
2023-12-05T00:00:00Z	**2023-12-05 vhf omnidirectional range**
![VORTAC site](https://computer.rip/f/vortac/1.jpg)

The term "VHF omnidirectional range" can at first be confusing, because it
includes "range"---a measurement that the technology does not provide. The
answer to this conundrum is, as is so often the case, history. The "range"
refers not to the radio equipment but to the space around it, the area in which
the signal can be received. VOR is an inherently spatial technology; the signal
is useless except as it relates to  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-12-05-vhf-omnidirectional-range.html)
2023-12-23T00:00:00Z	**2023-12-23 ITT Technical Institute**
Programming note/shameless plug: I am finally [on Mastodon](https://hachyderm.io/@jbcrawford).

The history of the telephone industry is a bit of an odd one. For the greatest
part of the 20th century, telephony in the United States was largely a monopoly
of AT&T and its many affiliates. This wasn't always the case, though. AT&T held
patents on their telephone implementation, but Bell's invention was not the
only way to construct a practical telephone. During the late 19th  ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2023-12-23-ITT-Technical-Institute.html)
2024-01-06T00:00:00Z	**2024-01-06 usb on the go**
USB, the Universal Serial Bus, was first released in 1996. It did not achieve
widespread adoption until some years later; for most of the '90s [RS-232-ish\
serial](https://computer.rip/2021-01-12-taking-this-serially.html) and its
awkward sibling the [parallel port](https://computer.rip/2023-01-29-the-parallel-port.html)
were the norm for external peripheral. It's sort of surprising that USB didn't
take off faster, considering the significant advantages it had over
conventional serial. Most s ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-01-06-usb-on-the-go.html)
2024-01-16T00:00:00Z	**2024-01-16 the tacnet tracker**
Previously on Deep Space Nine, I wrote that " [the mid-2000s were an unsettled\
time in mobile computing](https://computer.rip/2024-01-06-usb-on-the-go.html)."
Today, I want to share a little example. Over the last few weeks, for various
personal reasons, I have been doing a lot of reading about embedded operating
systems and ISAs for embedded computing. Things like the NXP TriMedia (Harvard
architecture!) and pSOS+ (ran on TriMedia!). As tends to happen, I kept coming
across refere ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-01-16-the-tacnet-tracker.html)
2024-01-21T00:00:00Z	**2024-01-21 multi-channel audio part 1**
Stereophonic or two-channel audio is so ubiquitous today that we tend to refer
to all kinds of pieces of consumer audio reproduction equipment as "a stereo."
As you might imagine, this is a relatively modern phenomenon. While stereo
audio in concept dates to the late 19th century, it wasn't common in consumer
settings until the 1960s and 1970s. Those were very busy decades in the music
industry, and radio stations, records, and film soundtracks all came to be
distrib ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-01-21-multi-channel-audio-part-1.html)
2024-01-31T00:00:00Z	**2024-01-31 multi-channel audio part 2**
Last time, we left off at the fact that modern films are distributed with their
audio in multiple formats. Most of the time, there is a stereo version of the
audio, and a multi-channel version of the audio that is perhaps 5.1 or 7.1 and
compressed using one of several codecs that were designed within the film
industry for this purpose.

But that was all about film, in physical form. In the modern world, films go
out to theaters in the form of Digital Cinema Packages, ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-01-31-multi-channel-audio-part-2.html)
2024-02-11T00:00:00Z	**2024-02-11 the top of the DNS hierarchy**
In the past (in fact two years ago, proof I have been doing this for a while
now!) I [wrote\
about](https://computer.rip/2022-01-16-peer-to-peer-but-mostly-the-main-peer.html)
the "inconvenient truth" that structural aspects of the Internet make truly
decentralized systems infeasible, due to the lack of a means to perform
broadcast discovery. As a result, most distributed systems rely on a set of
central, semi-static nodes to perform initial introductions.

For e ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-02-11-the-top-of-the-DNS-hierarchy.html)
2024-02-25T00:00:00Z	**2024-02-25 a history of the tty**
It's one of those anachronisms that is deeply embedded in modern technology.
From cloud operator servers to embedded controllers in appliances, there
must be uncountable devices that think they are connected to a TTY.

I will omit the many interesting details of the Linux terminal infrastructure
here, as it could easily fill its own article. But most Linux users are at
least peripherally aware that the kernel tends to identify both serial devices
and terminals as TTYs, assigning ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-02-25-a-history-of-the-tty.html)
2024-03-01T00:00:00Z	**2024-03-01 listening in on the neighborhood**
Last week, someone leaked a spreadsheet of SoundThinking sensors to
[Wired](https://www.wired.com/story/shotspotter-secret-sensor-locations-leak/).
You are probably asking "What is SoundThinking," because the company rebranded
last year. They used to be called ShotSpotter, and their outdoor acoustic
gunfire detection system still goes by the ShotSpotter name.

ShotSpotter has attracted a lot of press and plenty of criticism for the
gunfire detection servi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-03-01-listening-in-on-the-neighborhood.html)
2024-03-01T00:00:00Z	**2024-03-01 listening in on the neighborhood**
Last week, someone leaked a spreadsheet of SoundThinking sensors to
[Wired](https://www.wired.com/story/shotspotter-secret-sensor-locations-leak/).
You are probably asking "What is SoundThinking," because the company rebranded
last year. They used to be called ShotSpotter, and their outdoor acoustic
gunfire detection system still goes by the ShotSpotter name.

ShotSpotter has attracted a lot of press and plenty of criticism for the
gunfire detection servi ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-03-01-listening-in-on-the-neighborhood.html)
2024-03-09T00:00:00Z	**2024-03-09 the purple streetscape**
Across the United States, streets are taking on a strange hue at night. Purple.

Purple streetlights have been reported in Tampa, Vancouver, Wichita, Boston.
They're certainly in evidence here in Albuquerque, where Coal through downtown
has turned almost entirely to mood lighting. Explanations vary. When I first
saw the phenomenon, I thought of fixtures that combined RGB elements and
thought perhaps one of the color channels had failed.

Others on the internet offer more inv ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-03-09-the-purple-streetscape.html)
2024-03-17T00:00:00Z	**2024-03-17 wilhelm haller and photocopier accounting**
In the 1450s, German inventor Johannes Gutenburg designed the movable-type
printing press, the first practical method of mass-duplicating text. After
various other projects, he applied his press to the production of the Bible,
yielding over one hundred copies of a text that previously had to be
laboriously hand-copied.

His Bible was a tremendous cultural success, triggering revolutions not only in
printed matter but also in religion. It ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-03-17-wilhelm-haller-and-photocopier-accounting.html)
2024-03-27T00:00:00Z	**2024-03-27 telephone cables**
So let's say you're working on a household project and need around a dozen
telephone cables---the ordinary kind that you would use between your telephone
and the wall. It is, of course, more cost effective to buy bulk cable, or
simply a long cable, and cut it to length and attach jacks yourself. This is
even mercifully easy for telephone cable, as the wires come out of the flat
cable jacket in the same order they go into the modular connector. No fiddly
straightening and rearranging, yo ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-03-27-telephone-cables.html)
2024-04-05T00:00:00Z	**2024-04-05 the life of one earth station**
Sometimes, when I am feeling down, I read about failed satellite TV (STV)
services. Don't we all? As a result, I've periodically come across a company
called AlphaStar Television Network. PrimeStar may have had a rough life, but
AlphaStar barely had one at all: it launched in 1996 and went bankrupt in 1997.
All told, AlphaStar's STV service only operated for 13 months and 6
days.

AlphaStar is sort of an interesting story on its own. Much like the merchant
mari ... ⌘ [Read more](https://computer.rip/2024-04-05-the-life-of-one-earth-station.html)