A Powerful Security Tool

Posted on by
Reply

That’s what Anthropic’s Mythos package is. Anthropic already has released it to 50 companies and organizations, and now it wants to release Mythos to an additional 70. This would be a terrible mistake of highly destructive proportions for our national security. The White House is entirely correct to object and to move to get Anthropic to not release it further.

In my not very humble opinion, the 50 releasees already are ‘way too many. As The Wall Street Journal‘s news writer noted, Mythos is fully capable of find[ing] and exploit[ing] software vulnerabilities.

As such, Mythos is the beginnings of both a powerful offensive weapon and a critically proactive defensive tool. Release it too widely, and it becomes a powerful offensive weapon and critically proactive defensive tool in the hands of our enemies. Leaks happen. As the adage so correctly has it, telling a secret to three people makes it no longer secret. Fifty is dangerously larger than three, and those additional seventy guarantee widespread access to Mythos by our enemies.

The better solution would be to leave Mythos in its currently restricted release state, and let Anthropic, or DHS/DoD apply it on request to any company wanting its software inspected for vulnerabilities. Let DHS/DoD encourage companies above a size (TBD) to ask for the inspection, with that inspection coming at a nominal fee. Companies above that size that do not apply for a Mythos inspection that are then successfully cyber attacked should be fined heavily for their negligence. With the availability of a tool like Mythos, the existence of a successful cyber attack would be prima facie evidence of the victim’s negligence.

Hmm….

Posted on by
Reply

I wrote a bit ago about Yale’s “Reform” report. Lauren Noble, Buckley Institute founder, in her Monday letter to The Wall Steet Journal‘ Letters section, pointed out a couple of glaring omissions in that report that she’d spotted.

First, in 2021 Yale eliminated the process by which alumni could run for a spot on its governing board by petition. Alumni now only have the illusion of choice in who guides their alma mater. They select between Yale’s hand-picked candidates whom Yale prohibits from publicly discussing their views on issues. How does Yale expect to earn back the trust of the public if it doesn’t even trust its own alumni?

The Party candidates aren’t even trusted by those who chose them to speak properly in public? Hmm….

Second, Yale’s DEI efforts aren’t addressed. A recent Buckley Institute report found there are over 200 DEI staff still at Yale almost a year after the university supposedly ended its signature DEI program. Seventy-five of those staff were given new titles with less controversial terms. Yale needs to confront rather than hide from the legacy of these programs.

Again, I say,

Hmm….

Don’t Forget the Plutonium

Posted on by
Reply

President Donald Trump (R) wants to eliminate Iran’s ability to generate enough fissionable uranium to make nuclear bombs, and he’s correct to want to do so, and to do so. He’s also correct to demand Iran turn over all of its already generated U-235, the uranium isotope used in making those bombs, of whatever purity the isotope has already been spun down to. There can be no peace from terrorism-generating Iran until those goals have been achieved.

However.

John Bolton, in his Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed, reminded us all, and Trump in particular, that we can’t afford to leave behind Iran’s accumulating stockpile of plutonium. Pu-239 is the plutonium isotope used in making nuclear bombs that are even more powerful than U-235 centered bombs.

The terrorists in Iran’s government, and their nuclear scientists are well aware of that fact, and they’re well aware of this, too: Pu-239, aside from being produced in nuclear reactors explicitly designed for the purpose, also is produced, in smaller quantities, as a natural byproduct of U-235-fed nuclear reactors that are built solely for power generation.

Of particular importance here—but not sole importance—is Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear reactor in Bushehr.

It gets worse:

Once Bushehr launched, its accumulating spent fuel amounted to ever larger amounts of accessible plutonium. … Based on current Russian estimates of spent-fuel levels at Bushehr and International Atomic Energy Agency estimates about the reactor’s energy production, nuclear-proliferation expert Henry Sokolski estimates that Iran has enough plutonium to make more than 200 nuclear weapons.

The Bushehr reactor isn’t Iran’s only nuclear reactor; it’s just the one they’re using explicitly to produce Pu-239. It’s necessary to control, or destroy, all of Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear reactors.

In Which I Agree with Michelle Obama and Angel Reese

Posted on by
Reply

But maybe not for their reasons. In an interview on Obama’s podcast, WNBA star Angel Reese said,

The media has not always been great for me. And I’ll take a fine. I’ll catch a fine, especially in a WNBA. I’ll have a fine before I have to go to media and feel like my back is against the wall[.]

Obama repeatedly agreed with Reese over these and similar comments during the interview.

I tend to be hard over on the 1st Amendment and our freedoms of speech and association. It’s wrong that the WNBA and the other professional sports leagues require players and managers/coaches to present themselves to press inquisitions before, during, and after games. Athletes and their coaches and managers shouldn’t lose those basic rights just because of who they are.

Those rights to speak or not and to associate with pressmen formally or informally or not at all are independent of whether the press treats those it summons to their audiences badly or fawningly. Meeting the press should be an entirely voluntary affair. Nobody makes pressmen show up for these; neither should anyone else be required.

That’s the Point of the Escort

Posted on by
Reply

The DC Circuit court has upheld Pentagon press reporter escort restrictions inside the Pentagon while the underlying case works its way through the judicial system.

Judge J Michelle Childs dissented, and in her dissent, she demonstrated her lack of understanding of the problem:

Reporters can hardly verify sources, gather information, or speak candidly with Department personnel with an escort looming over their shoulders.

Nor should those Department personnel be able to speak “candidly.” They’re possessed of too much classified information, and that information is classified for very good reasons. Passing that information to reporters, whether deliberately or accidentally, would do damage to our national security, potentially very severe damage.

Aside from that, we—and she—have no reason to believe the reporters are verifying any sources, since those reporters refuse to identify any of them.

These personnel have no business talking to reporters inside the Pentagon, anyway; they should be referring the reporter to the relevant Public Affairs Officer, who is well-trained in answering reporters’ questions as candidly as classification limits allow, as well as obfuscating and weasel-wording in response to a reporter’s obvious gotcha and trolling questions.