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Non-ergodic risk matrices

A reader of this blog might be aware of both the difference between ergodic and non-ergodic risks, and how the presence of non-ergodicity (i.e. the possibility of irreversible catastrophic outcomes)...

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Screwtape’s statistics

Well hello there, it’s been a while hasn’t it? In the absence of our good host I thought I’d just pop in and offer some advice on how to use statistics for requirements compliance. Now of course what...

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The IoT, Botnets and Drone strikes

A clank of botnets More bad news for the Internet this week as a plague of BotNets launcher a successful wave of denial of service attacks on Dyn, a dynamic domain name service provider. The attacks...

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Graham Long

Never confuse volume with authority.Filed under: Thought for the day

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The internet goes nuclear

http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/%7Eeyalro/iotworm/iotworm.pdfFiled under: Internet of Things, Security Tagged: Critical mass, criticality, IoT, IoT worm, percolation theory, Zigbee chain reaction

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To err is inhuman

More infernal statistics Well, here we are again. Given recent developments in the infernal region it seems like a good time for another post. Have you ever, dear reader, been faced with the problem...

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Iain Banks

An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. Filed under:...

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Black Swans

Image source: AP/LM Otero Black Swans and the Trump Presidency So, we have a Trump Presidency in the wings, and what a total shock it was to all those pollsters, commentators and apparatchiks who got...

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Cyberwar the documentary

Cyberwar documentary now running on SBS with a good breakdown of the Stuxnet malware courtesy of the boys at Symantec. Thank you NSA for the bounty of Stuxnet, thank you. Filed under: Security Tagged:...

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Cyberwar, the documentary (part II)

Second part of the SBS documentary on line now. Looking at the IoT this episode. Filed under: Internet of Things, Security, Uncategorized Tagged: cyberwar, SBS

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Relatively straight forward? 

A recent case in Australia has again emphasised that an employer does not have to provide training for tasks that are considered to be ‘relatively’ straight forward. The presiding judge also found that...

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Centerlink’s killer new software

How algorithm can kill… So apparently the Australian Government has been buying it’s software from Cyberdyne Systems, or at least you’d be forgiven for thinking so given the brutal (dare I say...

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Twisting the dragon’s tail

With the NSW Rural Fire Service fighting more than 50 fires across the state and the unprecedented hellish conditions set to deteriorate even further with the arrival of strong winds the question of...

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And there goes net neutrality & privacy… Thanks Trump

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/03/congress_remove.htmlFiled under: Privacy, Security Tagged: net neutrality, Trump

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Pseudo-random excuses

For those of you who might be wondering at the lack of recent posts I’m a little pre-occupied at the moment as I’m writing a book. Hope to have a first draft ready in July. ; )Filed under: Off...

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QF72 and sense-making in the cockpit

The Sydney Morning Herald published an article this morning that recounts the QF72 midair accident from the point of view of the crew and passengers, you can find the story at this link. I’ve...

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The risk of being murdered by a terrorist…

We are hectored on an almost daily basis as to the imminent threat of islamic extremism and how we must respond firmly to this real and present danger. Indeed we have proceeded far enough along the...

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I wouldn’t do that if I were you

Here’s a working draft of the introduction and first chapter of my book…. Enjoy Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Book, I wouldn't do that if I were you

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Hazards and explanatory models

One of the perennial problems we face in a system safety program is how to come up with a convincing proof for the proposition that a system is safe. Because it’s hard to prove a negative (in this case...

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Unreliable airspeed (again)

So here’s a question for the safety engineers at Airbus. Why display unreliable airspeed data if it truly is that unreliable? In slightly longer form. If (for example) air data is so unreliable that...

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Concurrent design insanity!

One of the things that they don’t teach you at University is that as an engineer you will never have enough time. There’s never the time in the schedule to execute that perfect design process in your...

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Bath Iron Works Corporation Report 1995

Talking to one another not intuitive for engineers…

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People must retain control of autonomous vehicles

People must retain control of autonomous vehicles

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The hidden lesson of MH370

The search for MH370 will end next tuesday with it’s fate no closer to resolution. There is however one last terrible lesson that we can glean from this tragedy. Put simply it is that when we operate...

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Update to MH-370’s hidden lesson

Update to the MH-370 hidden lesson post just published, in which I go into a little more detail on what I think could be done to prevent another such tragedy.

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AI winter

AI winter

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The problem of rare accidents

When you look at the safety performance of industries which have a consistent focus on safety as part of the social permit, nuclear or aviation are the canonical examples, you see that over time...

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NASA Technical Memorandum 78482

If you want to know where Crew Resource Management as a discipline started, then you need to read NASA Technical Memorandum 78482 or “A Simulator Study of the Interaction of Pilot Workload With Errors,...

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Earl Wiener (1980)

It is highly questionable whether total system safety is always enhanced by allocating functions to automatic devices rather than human operators, and there is some reason to believe that flight-deck...

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Gen. Benjamin Chidlaw (1954)

Simply put, it is possible to have convenience if you want to tolerate insecurity, but if you want security, you must be prepared for inconvenience.

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A debate on tools, assurance and ethics

A debate on tools, assurance and ethics

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Lurching towards an antipodean panopticon

So, in submissions to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security (PJCIS) it’s been disclosed that government agencies, including local councils, are using loopholes in our current...

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And the encryption law is passed…

And the encryption law is passed...

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Tesla and technical debt

Here’s a view from inside Tesla by one of it’s former employees. Taking the report at face value, which is of course an arguable proposition, you can see how technical debt can build up to a point...

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Dr Phil Koopman (on driverless cars)

We shouldn’t be killing people in our haste to get to a safe future

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Uber’s safety management woes

Uber’s safety management woes

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Hans Moravec

…it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it...

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Facebook and Google back Labor changes to laws which break encryption

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/23/facebook-and-google-back-labor-changes-to-laws-which-break-encryption?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other" title="" target="">Facebook and Google back Labor...

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My Health Record – Opt Out

The deadline for you to opt out of the government’s ill advised national health record system is rapidly approaching, and for the record yes I have opted out. I’ll give you a concrete example of what...

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David Collins

Spruiking zero harm or crusading safety ‘because you care’ raises as much suspicion as having a folder on your computer named ‘DEFINITELY NOT PORN’ – would you get on a plane that had “ZERO CRASH”...

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Black Saturday

So ten years on from the Black Saturday fire we’re taking a national moment to remember the unstinting heroism displayed in the face of the hell of that day and of course all that was lost on the day....

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Why I deleted my LinkedIn account

Well, as someone said, because it’s the worst of social media, combined with the worst of corporate culture and the worst of website design. Because dealing with it regularly is as interesting as...

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Farewell

This will be the last post on this website, so if you want to grab some of the media available under useful stuff feel free.

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Mitigation or Suppression?

Imperial College London just  updated their report on interventions (other than pharmacological) to reduce death rates and prevent the health care system being overwhelmed. The news is not good. They...

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A Book… called Critical Uncertainties

In case you’ve been wondering what I’ve been doing since I said finis to this bog, the answer is, I’ve been writing. In fact I’ve been writing a book, titled, Critical Uncertainties. After several...

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ATAGI, Astra Zeneca and Risk

Or how not to do risk assessments To set the scene. Here in Australia there is a a group called the Australian Technical Advisory Group (ATAGI) that provides advice to the federal government’s health...

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How ATAGI really screwed up

So in a previous post I outlined why the risk comparison that ATAGI purported to perform was fatally flawed. But unfortunately it’s worse than that. ATAGI’s risk comparison is based on a side by side...

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ATAGI and the law of large numbers

ATAGI provided an estimate of the risk associated with TTS events (bad post vaccination events). This was at the time based on the evidence that was available. The problem with this is that we run...

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The ATAGI failures

Here in one handy post are the various criticisms I’ve made of ATAGI’s performance: ATAGI and the law of large numbersHow ATAGI really screwed upATAGI, Astra Zeneca and risk (how not to do risk...

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Critical Uncertainties…a Book

Latest drop of the work in progress. You can find a review copy at the link.

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