Curating the Internet: Science and technology digest for January 15, 2020

An argument that 5G wireless security has fundamental weaknesses; A response to Linus Torvalds' post about ZFS on Linux; A machine can keep livers alive - outside the body - for seven days; US Navy says releasing classified documents about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) could jeopardize national security; and a Steem essay with suggestions for pursuing a career in information technology

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First posted on my Steem blog: SteemIt, SteemPeak^*, StemGeeks.

1. 5G Security - Bruce Schneier argues that there are some obvious problems with the 5G wireless networking protocol, like the possibility of eavesdropping or deliberate disruption of services from governments like China's, but he argues that it's not enough to just avoid using network gear from untrusted, foreign vendors. In addition, Schneier echoes remarks from Susan Gordon who argued that it is too late to secure 5G networks, and that, from a security perspective, any network using 5G wireless should be considered to be compromised. Schneier argues that there are three fundamental problems with 5G: (i) the protocol is too complicated to implement securely; (ii) Backwards compatibility with 4G exposes 5G devices to 4G security flaws; and (iii) 5G standards development efforts accepted too many trade-offs by prioritizing "development, performance, cost, and time to market" over security. In the end, Schneier says that it's up to governments, applications, and users to continue muddling along and securing their own infrastructure. Schneier also expresses the recommendation that maybe security will be more of a consideration in the 6G standard, which is beginning to be established now.


2. Linus Torvalds says “Don’t use ZFS”—but doesn’t seem to understand it - As covered in Curating the Internet: Science and technology digest for January 11, 2020, Linux maintainer Linus Torvalds recently posted with advice for Linux users to avoid the ZFS file system. This article is a response to that statement. There were three aspects to Torvalds' post: (i) He said that the Linux promise not to break things only applies to user space, not to Linux kernel modules; (ii) He doesn't want ZFS in the linux kernel because of Oracle's litigious nature; and (iii) that ZFS is basically just a buzz word without any real-world value. This article takes issue with the third claim, pointing out that ZFS provides a host of useful functions including per-block checksumming, automatic data repair, atomic snapshots, rapid replication, and on-disk compression. The essay argues that the only close to equivalent and widely available file system is btrfs, but claims that product suffers from stability problems when making use of advanced features. Personally, I have a number of years of professional experience working with the ZFS file system on Solaris systems, and I definitely agree that it's far more than just a buzz-word.


3. A machine can now keep livers alive outside the body for a week - A new study in Nature Biotechnology describes a machine that can keep livers alive for up to seven days, and can also improve the quality of the liver prior to implanting it in a transplant patient. This research has been in progress with pig livers for a number of years, but this is the first time it was done with human livers. For this study, ten human livers were used that were too damaged for transplant. In order to keep the organ alive, the machine provides blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the cell while eliminating waste and maintaining the pressure to match that of the human body. Because amounts of blood, oxygen, and nutrients are controlled by algorithm, there is no requirement for constant management by human operators. Before this can be used as part of the real-world transplant process, researchers still need to demonstrate that the machine can work in a practical setting, and that it's safe to implant livers that have been kept alive this way.


4. Top-Secret UFO Files Could 'Gravely Damage' US National Security if Released, Navy Says - US Navy videos from the Nimitz Aircraft Carrier in 2004 were leaked in 2007 and raised to prominence by the NY Times in 2017 (along with other videos from 2015 sightings). These videos appear to show Navy pilots observing some sort of aerial objects that were flying in ways that appeared to defy the law of physics. Now, in response to FOIA requests, the Navy revealed that it has classified, secret, and top-secret documents, but that release of those documents could do grave damage to US national security. The Navy also acknowledged possession of video from one or more incidents, but it's not clear if that's the same video that was already leaked.
   
   As background, here is a video from Discovery covering the 2004 video:
   

   -h/t RealClear Science



5. STEEM Dreaming of a Lucrative Career in IT? These suggestions Should Top Your List - In this post, @twr suggests four career options for people who seek lucrative work in the field of information technology (IT). These include: IT consultant; Cloud architect; Health IT specialist; or web developer. To advance your career, the article also suggests seeking mentors and training in technical areas as well as "soft skills" like teamwork, communication, and time management. (A 10% beneficiary setting has been applied to this post for @twr.)

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