Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
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Richard Hull
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Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Richard Hull »

Fusion is looked at as a future power source to save the world by many of the hopefuls in both the public and research scientists of fusion involved in its implementation.

It all springs back not to fusion and how tough power ready fusion is to do, but to the supplies really need to "keep 'em running". Oooops a small matter we can straighten out...or can we. All the stuff and infrastructure needed to start and run even ITER is being shut down!!
Check out this hard sayins' video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHZMW0AmAKw

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Certainly, net fusion power has a few, very minor issues - like it can't currently be done at all. But this vid doesn't address that elephant in the room. Rather, the vid tries to create another problem (guess piling on is fun) but really misses the mark.

The tritium issue they raise is so well known that a Moon Nazi comedy movie even used this fact as one of the key comedy points. So, even a Hollywood comedy movie writer knew this issue. The vid tried to imply this is some type of secret problem. So, hardly a secret in any sense of the word as you also noted.

Then claiming that breeding tritium via fusion is very difficult or not sufficient. Please! Sorry but the rate they cite is plenty. For instance, to breed enough fuel for just one new fission breeder reactor takes 10 breeder reactors (so 1.1 at best.) In no way does this create problems for breeder reactors. So, for a fusion reactor a 1.1 to 1.2 breeding rate (tritium created vs. tritium consumed) is more then sufficient to create enough tritium for all fusion reactors running. Kinda lost why this poster thinks that rate is somehow insufficient?

Then their claim that creating the required isotope of lithium (enrich it) is some type of problem - sorry but that is a big lol. For example, creating highly enrich fuels for reactors (an EXTREMELY) dangerous process, is typical for fission reactors and isn't, again, a big issue - the US does it on a massive scale - and we are talking taking less then 1% and enriching to 80% (for many power applications.) Sorry, but creating enrich lithium using modern equipment (not even a radioactive issue!) compared to 60's methodologies (which they cited) is not a way to judge this process. Creating enrich lithium is NOT an issue and isn't really a 'show stopper' at all.

As for enough tritium, breeding via a fusion reactor will make the process slower and certainly fission reactor production is a potential source to supplement the breeding process. But is it an issue? Yes. Is it a show stopper? Not at all. The rate of breeding is more then acceptable and until someone can actually make an economical fusion reactor that produces net energy, these issues are so minor as to be irrelevant.

For me, the cost of a likely (viable) fusion reactor (ignoring the neutron threat to magnets and inner shields) is the real show stopper. No way fusion energy (even if they get well above break even by a few orders of magnitude) will be too costly compared to other non-polluting sources for people to want to use energy from such a source.

So, as Richard puts it - fusion, the energy of the future and (apparently), always will be. Yet tritium for fusion reactors (and bear with me on this sci-fy idea) will only be an issue once these currently mythical creatures are used for space ships or Mars bases and the like. Certainly not gonna be a relevant problem here on Earth where we have more than enough lithium to breed tritium.
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Richard Hull »

It is obvious ITER will have no issue on the tritium issue. They will gobble up half the world's supply easy in what will surely be an epic fail at creating net energy (Q total). The lithium blanket in ITER is designed not to create tritium as a 1.1 return, but as mentioned, is merely there as a research issue.

Since the entire fusion effort at ITER is doomed, the lithium issue and the tritium issue is rather moot as no future fusion power reactors will be forthcoming following ITER's failure to run 24-7-365 at even a unity return on net energy or Q total of 1.0. I am confident in a mega-billion dollar fail that will be touted as a sort of win due to the knowledge gained from this boondoggle.

The confidence in this effort is hampered by the numbers around ITER when examined closely. Are they still touting a 2025 first light-off? They may just be able to push this start-up down the road long enough for the world to sink into a world-wide economic collapse allowing them to complain that no nations are contributing to its completion. A net save for the ITER folks.

Coal plants are be re-fired all across Europe. Closed fission nuclear power stations are being considered for restart. It is near impossible to obtain firewood in Germany at present. Burn baby burn. Even the most adamant and committed "Greenie" in Europe doesn't want to take a chill this winter as global warming hurtles toward us.

Wait for it....

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Frank Sanns »

These articles are precursors to justify the coming failure. Something to pout a finger at to assess blame. Somebody needs to be blamed for the failure of such a big project when it fails. It is the only way to get funding for the next variation on the fusion theme to pay their salaries. And it happens again. More excuses rThaer than admitting that crashing things to togeTher harder using brute force is always going to be nearly impossible at just about all terrestrial scales using the necessary electricity and magnets.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Matt_Gibson »

“Terrestrial” -This popped an idea into my head:

I wonder how a fusor would operate outside of Earth’s gravity and atmosphere? Space is pretty cold, would be easy to cool the chamber on the moon based fusor, no?

Little or no atmosphere would help with voltage insulation.

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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Frank Sanns »

Somewhere there is this thread where I proposed operating a grid Fusor in outer space with no chamber. The only confinement would be from the electric charges on the two grids. Mean free path could be kilometers and it would still work.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Finn Hammer »

Forgive me my ignorance, but is there not a fair chance that by the time "they" get the thing running, all the lithium in this world would be ground up and unrecoverably stuck in battery slurry.

Cheers, Finn Hammer
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Matt_Gibson »

Here in the USA, we are being told (Elecric Utilities) to expect a 30% increase in EV by 2035. That is definitely going to remove a mass amount of lithium unless we stumble across a new battery chemistry…

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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Frank Sanns »

Hoping that electric vehicles will solve the energy crisis is as foolish as those from decades ago that thought that nuclear fusion would solve the energy crisis. It is a fools game for those that do not know any better. Pushing people to EV may end up being one of the greatest blunders is this century.

Even if there is a marginal savings of energy using EV, it has so many detriments that I cannot imagine how it can be forced onto the populous. Using only one type of power and not diverse power sources is a dangerous game of Russian roulette. One solar storm, one hack, one failure, severe weather, and any other problem and all mobility ceases.

The Green financial cost is significant to all in higher vehicle costs or higher taxes because of EV subsidies; read, take money from one pocket or another.

Lithium mining, refining, and all other vehicle costs get ignored. This is exactly what the big fusion guys do. Omit the energy used to construct and operate the device then quote an outrageously high Q number to make the fools believe it is a viable technology.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Matt_Gibson »

I’m the Dir of Engineering for my utility, so have some pretty hard feelings against EV. Even if we had some massive breakthrough in energy supply, like fusion, we still don’t have the materials to upgrade the distribution/transmission lines or the transformers to handle the huge increase in demand.

The costs (labor alone) would be unimaginable.

I get asked to attend hearings before various Government offices and always give them an ear full (respectfully of course). The people pushing this stuff have zero idea about the huge difficulties that come with it. I don’t understand why our Government can’t/won’t get actual experts with knowledge and experience to assist them?

Might as well also shoot for reaching our nearest star by 2035 using our latest tech.

-Matt
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Frank Sanns »

Two answers come to mind Matt.

You have the unrealistic environmentalist (I am not dumping on those of us that are reasonable environmentalists). that latch on to anything that sounds even remotely possible and run with it. Once enough unknowing people grab on to it, government officials start to get on board to be in favor with larger and larger swaths of voters. The word on the street is EV all the way. Talk to a Tesla driver and they will tell you Joe their $100K super accelerating zero emission vehicle make them model environment citizens.

The other is big money. If you have people willing to pay more for an alternative that you have a higher profit margin on, then why not. Add a new high cost battery replacement and it is a gold mine for them.

Utility companies see marginally more use so they are at least for the short term onboard. As you know this will backfire in the not to distant future as EV volumes create too much demand on an already taxed grid. Not good.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Richard Hull »

All of this discussion would tend to force one to sit still and put down the #$@*&!! smart phone for 1.5 hours, grab a six pack and some pizza and watch, carefully, The Planet of the Humans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE


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Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Wind can be a very useful source of power; can it currently replace natural gas? Not possible. Coal? Possibly but not holding my breath. Apparently, battery tech has been making leaps in technology - a perfect example is the iron-oxide approach. Useless for cars, or any application that requires low weight but a perfect fit for power plant level energy storage. Since the North-East has lots of wind that is fairly close to the areas required, transmission isn't such an issue. As for most other locals - well, not happening.

Fission has tremendous potential once we abandon the standard American (or European, Russian, Chinese or Canadian) reactor designs - they are far too costly and require intensive human input to control, further adding to its cost (ignoring waste storage.) However, the Fast-Spectrum Molten-Salt Reactor design put forward by Elysium Industries has tremendous potential for utterly safe, inexpensive electricity and far better still, it burns existing waste nuclear fuel - no need for new uranium sources.

Is there a single solution? Of course not.

Can pure Green energy do it? Of course not.

Will fusion energy be able to create low cost energy in the next thirty years? Of course not.

But can a mix of low cost fission, wind, some solar and natural gas as needed do the job? Of course not - we have almost zero commitment to that course so not gonna happen in the next twenty odd years even if someone started today.

So, will AGW exceed 2 C in a number of years resulting in vast regions of the equatorial sections of Earth (where billions live and grow their food) to become uninhabitable for humans; hence, forcing billions to flee creating vast famines, wars, deaths and associate disasters by 2050*?

Of course.


* By 2050, vast regions (most of India, SE Asia, Middle East, Central America and significant parts of South American, and equatorial Africa and most of North Africa as well) where billions live will experience wet bulb temperatures (wet bulb at or above 95 F) to exceed human survival levels - i.e. 48 hours of such continuous temperature; without AC, no human can survive for that time period even in shade with water to drink. These temps and length of times will occur regularly during peak summer months for those and longer time periods in these regions - this will also occur in the US Mississippi valley.
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Richard Hull »

We are far too slow, and perhaps too late, in getting new fission systems built and functional. We do not want to rush any new large plant into being. In giga-watt installations great care must be exercised in construction. We know how to build them better now with new materials and technology over the 1970's when the last spurt of US fission plants were built.

Battery storage is advancing, as noted. not only is weight not an issue but battery banks of far less volumetric power efficiency and vastly more safe while in use are possible. You just have to have the land for such huge less efficient and perhaps cheaper storage solutions. Such solutions might just not demand the raping of the earth's rarer resources to boot. But, this too is years off if wind and solar are even dreamed of as a near 100% world wide power replacement solution.

I have never worried about CO2 or the future of the world. It will go on spinning with or without us, just fine. I call horrible weather events, floods, heat waves, etc., just weather. There has always been weather and always will be with the sun as its driver and sole arbiter, regardless of earth's atmospherics. Life will survive regardless of all weather. The place is lousy with life's permanent infection. I like to think we are still in the process of emerging from the last ice age! Humans, in the tiny span of the industrial revolution, are something new to the planet. We are still only hunter-gatherers, as of old. However, we now hunter-gather with technological voraciousness!

Much like a hay infusion springing to life in short order in a jar of water with all its little "animalcules", they will eat themselves to death and die off in short order. Just because we are "smart" means little as our smarts allows colony growth. We expand and soil and spoil our little ecosphere. CO2 really doesn't amount to much. Be it nuclear Armageddon, global warming, global cooling, oceans rising 180 feet, humans, like cock roaches, will survive! Perhaps we will wind up on a more planet friendly 100 million total world population of advanced humans.

That which is about us today, will not survive into the future.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Frank Sanns »

Developed and developing counties have a solution that would have more impact than all other proposals like banning natural gas stoves and heating and petrol vehicles. It is called STOP WASTING! A full third of all food is wasted day after day. It is then land filled to decay and produce more gases. The transportation, farming, fertilizers, water, …., that go into growing food is astronomical.

If only people would buy only what they need and stop waste, they could at least have some meaningful positive impact on the environment. But the masses just never will. It is too much inconvenience and effort for them. Instead, they will pay good money though to buy an EV or few hundred KW of solar panels on a mansion house for two people and use drinking water to water their football stadium sized yards. All the while they will claim they are carbon neutral because the have enough panels to run a small city. The hypocrisy and feeling good about it all shall never be overcome. Not even in a crisis.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Dennis P Brown »

As Richard correctly points out we are, in fact, "smart". And frankly, if the news media (either the 'both sides' or the even less honest outlet) and certain special interests (those that either own most of the carbon resources or are its agents) with their outright lies have done more than muddy the waters - they've stopped most reasonable progress.

If the science was discussed honestly, I have little doubt that most Americans (being smart - seriously) would have pushed to have started to address this issue decades ago and the advances we are finally making could have been done far earlier.

But the lies and mis-information grow faster then kudzu in summer and I have no doubt that until the wars, disasters, displacements and weather events strike here hard, we will continue on this trajectory. The worst part is we could do major items that would help but vested interest will never permit that nor allow the politicians, to do that either. Certainly Frank adds a number of useful points - and I too consider EV's a total waste for most people and consider them at best counter productive, and at worst, a mini-disaster. Unfortunately, not so the media, the car companies and their advertisers.

This is not a political statement at all - just stating the facts that make it understandable why when 97% of all experts in the field agree that CO2 is causing current AGW (and most the remaining 3% agree its still significant, just not the main/or only driver) so many Americans think CO2 and AGW aren't an issue or is false. This doesn't mean people are less smart, just that the media (looking at you, cable) dominates far too many people's primary/only source of information.
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Frank Sanns »

I would like to clarify my point about EV. There is a time and place for EV. For small, relatively low power vehicles that have to stop and start often, they can be a good choice. A golf cart is a good example. A long haul tractor trailer would not be because a full one third of its carrying capacity would have to be batteries. Even if the efficiency of batteries improves by 100%, it is still a lot of lost carrying capacity and a very long charge time relative to filling up with diesel.

Which brings me to point of stop and go driving. Why are we stopping so much? A vehicle that comes to a complete stop wastes a vast amount of energy to get moving again. Does it not make more sense to abandon traffic signals and the system that was put in place nearly 100 years ago and implement systems to keep vehicles moving? In the early days of cars, when two would come to an Intersection, it was a coin toss to see who would go first. Today that same car coming up from a minor side street triggers the ligh and 30 cars have to stop to let the car in. It is absurd. All traffic lights on major roads should allow for free uninterrupted flow. Once the packet of cars pass the side street cars get queued in. My point is that all vehicles today could get ultra high fuel economy if they were not continually having to unnecessarily have to habitually stopping. Spend the resources to solve the actual problem rather than forcing everybody to go to a bandaid compromise.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Matt_Gibson »

Selfishness and stupidity get in the way of progress. In theory, a roundabout makes alot of sense, in practice, they can be worse than a stop sign/traffic light. No one (that I’ve seen) seems to understand how to use one. Instead of spacing out, slowing down, and not stopping, people form these long chains of cars that all go through at the same time which forces the others entrances to all come to a stop. So extremely frustrating.

Same idea behind most other great ideas out there. People constantly get in the way.

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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Frank Sanns »

AI and synchronized traffic signals is what I was suggesting. You are correct. Can’t leave it up to the people.

I didn’t want to stretch the technology too far but who needs roads? At least in the city. Concrete is one of the largest generators on co2. Why not shrink the roads widths and incorporate automated rail or guides that control all flow. Cars gather, get in the queue, then get whisked off to their destination exit where they get control again.

I would rather see infrastructure money put into revolutionizing the system rather than all of the EV and charging network and grid updates.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Matt_Gibson »

Then you’ll have to contend with the fopdoodles (hackers) out there hell bent on chaos. I’m at a relatively small Utility (115k meters) and we get daily attacks from around the world. If we could all put our differences aside and come together for some actual progress, imagine what we could do? I say we boot the politicians out, first.

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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Emma Black »

Over here in the UK energy is very a hot topic. We also have had chronic underinvestment in new energy capacity for decades. Combine that with a lot of old coal and fission plants shutting down and the current natural gas shortage due to Ukraine and we face the very real possibility of planned blackouts this year if we have a cold winter. Not an exaggeration, I've seen some of the emergency briefings.
Some new fission plants have the green light but obviously these will take ages to build.
Gasoline prices here are also insane now (over $2/L), they were bad before but now it's genuinely starting to make people reconsider their journeys. The trend of people working from home has helped somewhat.

Roundabouts are everywhere here and people are used to them, but they do the same unsure inefficient thing when confronted with this monstrosity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D22BOOGbpFM

We also have things called "smart motorways" which allows for the emergency lanes to be used at peak times as well as mandatory variable speed limits, managed by a central control station. These have just caused a lot of lethal accidents and whilst they improved the traffic to start with, it was not long before the capacity was overwhelmed.

As Matt said, the cyber issues around key infrastructure is very real, not just from small groups but also from state sponsored actors. I work in information security and some of the stuff happening at the moment is crazy.
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

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The more we tie ourselves in to cyber and link things to the internet, the more vulnerable we make ourselves as a society. Think about it.. IOT allows millions to turn on all manner of smart things at home from the smartphone. All interlinked and IOT is hackable or even vulnerable to a massive EMP which might be deliverable without loss of life or destruction of hardened infrastructure.

Smart routing of electrical power is a real boon over a vast power grid that is interlinked such that a major burp at one point might be isolated in milliseconds from the rest of the grid to avoid damage to it. By the same token it forms a double edged sword to any number of major, ill directed malfeasances.

Think! What would happen if all cell/smartphone service were interrupted over the nation or the globe for 10 weeks. Oh God! What would you do?
Based on what I observe, when a person or persons are asked to be without there electronic pacifier for periods of time, the instant they are set free from this prison, the smartphones come out to the very man, woman and child of them!

It is the "circus" of the old expression of populace control mantra of "give them bread and circus." The circus in this case is not occasional, but perpetual and all pervasive.

Interactions with others are now at range. Interactions are now with a vast throng of "others" who have never been seen nor will ever be with one on a true personal interactive basis. Bile and calumny are spewed freely as well as expressions of caring and communion with those who will never be in one's presence. A near perfect faux reality, all in the palm of one's hand. The vast trove of data, history, art, science and information to be found in one's hand is used more for trivia searches or to settle arguments with facts immediately forgotten.

That which was once a vast amount of "alone time" for introspection and self-reflection related to the spiritual and ethereal is now felt as a road to depression and self-loathing. Drugs are often there to tide the weakest of spirits over such horrors of alone time.

Science has given us all we need to amuse and abuse ourselves. Fusion is a promise of limitless power to make every man a king, raise those of lesser circumstance out of poverty, as well and water and feed the world which grows ever more power hungry. Developing nations of billions will do whatever it takes in the way of burning fossil fuel, gobbling up limited resources and despoiling the planet, just as we did. It is their time on the stage....Just try and knock them off. It is their time to gorge themselves, just as we now strive to limit and strangle ourselves out of self-loathing in atonement for our sins in an effort to stave off what are perceived "end-times".

Fusion is a hope and a dream. It is off somewhere in the future.....or is it....Will there be a period of world-wide stability that will allow the concentration of effort and funds poured into the effort to make it happen? Using these old eyes, reason and logic, it looks as if we are beating a dead horse via our current efforts.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Emma Black »

Well said, more people should "unplug". Less concerned with consumer IOT stuff, although it's likely some of it is spying on you, but the insidious plethora of connected devices thats crept into various industries.
IOT medical devices is a good example, it's scary both how widespread and how poor the security of these things are. Not just monitoring devices either, I've seen radiation therapy machines with default credentials fully open to the internet, all very hackable.
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Luca Aldridge »

Many IoT products are easily hackable. Especially old ones, or cheap ones as less R&D is in place. Did you know that MySpace doesn’t encrypt the password you use? Anyone monitoring your traffic can log in to it. Likewise with medical equipment. All (or most) of the money has been put into the machine itself not safety points.
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Re: Some major issues most of us know about....But....

Post by Paul_Schatzkin »

Frank Sanns wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 2:09 pm In the early days of cars, when two would come to an Intersection, it was a coin toss to see who would go first.
I believe the law was "when two vehicles approach an intersection simultaneously, neither may go until the other has passed."

Personally, I prefer rindy-bites.

--P
Paul Schatzkin, aka "The Perfesser" – Founder and Host of Fusor.net
Author of The Boy Who Invented Television: 2023 Edition – https://amz.run/6ag1
"Fusion is not 20 years in the future; it is 60 years in the past and we missed it."
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