Fast forward to late May and Intel has assumed the mantel of looking around the globe for other budding scientists (see letter below).

And somehow, in some old file cabinet, are half-century-old documents which is obviously how they found me.

And yes, I still remember the feeling. And feel good for someone else remembering. It’s not like some “glory days” wistfulness, but more of a good deep, satisfying vision of where creativity, hard work and a little intelligence can lead.

I didn’t follow the scientific path. I would like to have done that, but I put myself through college as a newspaper reporter and needed to continue working rather than go to graduate school. I still love science and math. I’ve kept up with a lot of it and have worked quite a lot into my books — Slatewiper, Tesla Bequest, Queensgate Reckoning, Perfect Killer and Die By Wire especially.

Some times I wish I could go back to school. I’d really like to be as competent as a human could be about quantum chromodynamics, particle physics and such. But I do not regret the non-linear trajectory of my life. I wouldn’t change my family or my friends for all of the quarks in the multiverse.

But it does feel good. And, yes I got suckered and joined the ISEF community.

TESLA, TESLA, TESLA

Before I wrote The Tesla Bequest and my other books, I was a Nikola Tesla acolyte. For more, see:

• My Tesla Evolution 2: Ion Engine + Atom Smasher = Cosmic Engine

• My Tesla Evolution 1: Coil, Laser, Ion Rocket

• How Nikola Tesla & A Butter Knife Turned Me Into A Rocket Scientist

The real issue is the fact that the whole program was kept so secret.

The US was founded on the principle that those who govern do so ONLY with the consent of the governed.

But it is impossible to give or withhold consent if the actions are secret.

The other very frightening part is the extent to which such programs can be abused.

Nixon used government secrecy to persecute people on his enemies list. And the jury is out on whether Obama has done the same. At the very least his campaign promise of transparency ring as hollow now as any other craven pol.

But history also shows that power corrupts. And if the power lacks oversight and transparency, the temptation for abuse usually proves irresistible.

As Congress begins its usual process of finger pointing, blaming, blathering, and posturing (to no end that benefits the republic) we need to remember that this issue is a vital one that should not be dismissed by them or by the Administration which is far more embarrassed it got caught than it is concerned over any actual security breaches.

As an investigative reporter in DC, I’ve broken my share of scandals and seen my share of classified documents that were secret not because of national security data, but because they were embarrassing to someone in power.

Just because some self-interested bureaucrat stamps something as classified does not mean that it merits that designation.

We need to remember that as the Obama administration moves to crucify the Prism whistleblower.

Flag presented to Backy Barner, widow of Lt.Colonel A. L. “Buddy” Barner: Services May 27, 2008, Arlington National Cemetery

AIR FORCE LT.COL A. L. “BUDDY” BARNER. (WGFP)
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL SERVICE (click for images)

Five years ago tomorrow, we buried an American hero who shaped my life.

Lt. Col. A.L. “Buddy” Barner (World’s Greatest Fighter Pilot-Click for more) was a fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam, a test pilot between wars who accumulated six Distinguished Flying Crosses. And for his success in rescuing a squadron member under his command from a Mig ambush over North Vietnam, he won a Silver Star for bravery.

That was nothing short of a miracle because the North Vietnamese Migs were as faster and maneuverable as a Corvette compared with the pick-up-truck stolidness of the F-105 Thunderchief (“Thud”) jets that Buddy and his men were piloting on pinpoint bombing missions over North Vietnam.

There were, as you might imagine, a lot of pilots that didn’t survive long enough to celebrate the 100-missions ceremonies (below).

Buddy’s 100-mission ceremony

Buddy was my first cousin, but more like an uncle to me and I hung on to his every word and read and re-read every one of the infrequent letters he sent to me.

I’ll always remember being a little kid about five years old, standing outside my grandmother’s house in Itta Bena Mississippi in 1950-something, tearfully hugging him goodbye. I was holding an old mayonnaise jar I had cleaned for the occasion. When I cleared my tears, I handed him the jar and asked him to bring me a jar of clouds back next time.

Buddy shaped the scientific trajectory  that turned me into a teenage rocket scientist that won a ton of awards from NASA and the Air Force and earned more awards at the International Science Fair. And he was the reason that I prevailed on my family’s considerable political clout and received an appointment to the Air Force Academy. (Flunked my physical – eyesight was not 20/20).

But that latter never dimmed my admiration for Buddy. He was a tough, talented, determined man with a long history of achievement, accomplishment.

I dedicated my 2003 thriller, Perfect Killer (click for more) to him. And wrote him into the book in a role that he enjoyed.

Five years later, Buddy died.

And that was almost exactly five years ago.

I’ve not shared this memorial site online before.

It’s time.

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR AIR FORCE LT.COL A. L. “BUDDY” BARNER, WGFP (click for more)

I’m a lot better writer than I am a quarterback, and I’ve studied everything about John leCarre’, read everything, analyzed, examined and studied myself to death. And, while my writing may have benefited from that, I’m far from his class. Most authors are in the same predicament.

But, I have read … and re-re-re-re-read the following piece from the current issue of the Economist’s supplement,  Culture/Intelligent Life with some hope that I might inch my writing forward a bit.

I especially liked this Golden Rule:

“Keep it simple. He favours short words. This makes the odd descriptive flourish—such as the image, in ‘Call for the Dead,’ of lines in a face ‘cutting the skin into squares’—all the more piercing, like a match suddenly lit in the gloom.”

And I was also taken with:

“Use of free indirect style, like Jane Austen. In nearly all his novels, le Carré flits between first and third person. He can catch the inflection of speech—”Lord knows”—while never fully giving his characters away. It is the technique of an author who wants to hold his cards to his chest. 2) Short chapters that often end on cliff-hangers. Conversation will be cut off mid-speech at the end of one chapter, to be taken up in the next. Brevity is the key: three months in prison will be covered in three pages….”

I’ve tried the mixed use of both first- and third-person (in Perfect Killer) with mixed results from readers … some loved it, some not so much. Just proving … again, that I am not le Carre’.

The piece notes that The Spy Who Came In From The Cold turns 50 this year which is why I climbed up my bookcase ladder and pulled that down along with a few other oldies to re-read.

The Richard Burton DVD of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold of is also on my agenda.

Speaking of agendas, while le Carre’ writes superbly and is a stylist unmatched, I profess a slackening of my interest on his writing since The Little Drummer Girl. That’s about the time he began to mount an increasingly large soap box and started to preach so loudly that — regardless of whether you agreed with him politically or not — the sermons took on a cloying, annoying quality that sapped much of the enjoyment.

The leaders of both Palestine entities support terrorism, suppress freedom of speech and religion, deny basic human rights to women and gays and assert that their perverted interpretation gives them the right and obligation to kill, maim and mutilate innocent people in their attempts.

Yes, Palestinian people live under harsh conditions but only their leadership can change that.A hand of peace will go a lot father toward that than another barrage of rockets.

But that won’t change as long as both Gaza and the West Bank are run by totalitarian Islamist fanatics who will settle for nothing less than the deaths of all Israelis … and indeed everyone who doesn’t agree with them.

Supporting a boycott against Israel without recognizing the evils that fester in Palestine is simply hypocritical, based on a flawed view of reality and shows a lack of respect for human rights.

If the supporters of the boycott want to step away from their hypocrisy, then they need to call for boycotts of all oppressors of human rights which means adding Egypt, Palestine, Iran, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria … and on and on.

But, that wouldn’t be politically correct, would it? So, they concentrate on boycotting Jews. And what message does that convey?

Think about that for a moment while I explain a different approach I am taking with some of my writing.

I’ve tried for decades to deal with deep issues … serious things … in the context of my main fiction genre, thrillers. I put the thoughts — and often a lot of factual research — into the mouths and minds of my characters.

I’ve been criticized for doing this in a thriller. In the past, I have responded that lots of people read genre fiction who would not read a “serious” work.

Well, I am now starting to believe that my critics were right.

People read thrillers for the action and a veneer of ethics/morality/serious thought. I put too much of the latter in my books … more than a veneer … and the words get in the way of the action.

What’s more, I always end up having to edit away about half of what  about the serious things … just to try and keep the thriller elements moving … but often, even that half is too much.

So, a new blog:  Memories and Time.

This might be the answer … composed mostly of short pieces posted frequently …

But I may also dig out the longer versions of pieces I did on consciousness, ethics, evil, etc … and make those posts as well. Perhaps this will become a book.

Please let me know what you think. lperdue (AT) ideaworx.com.

Nope, it wasn’t a bunch of little carpet weavers as one story goes, or child labor as Argo played it. Nope. Turns out to be my fault. The Washington Post article from May 14, 1977 at the bottom of this post explains how my investigative reporting of a Congressional scandal ended up helping the Iranian nutcases.

These photos are from the middle of the my investigative book, The Washington Connection. Scroll down for large images. Newspaper photos after the hostage taking at the American Embassy in Tehran showed a copy of my book in the background images of the hostage takers who were reconstituting documents shredded before the takeover. Indeed, the setting of their work looked a great deal like ours. That was the start of their learning curve.

I got my first clue on a visit to London not all that long after embassy takeover. I took shelter under the awning of a news stand as the morning mist turned earnestly to a proper rain requiring a proper bumbershoot I did not have.

And there, on more than one front page were photos of the Iranian thugs putting together shredded documents.

I bought a copy of one of the papers, partly to pay rent for staking out a dry spot under the awning, but mostly because I had figured out how to do that very thing a couple of years before and and led a team of talented and determined investigative reporters on a mission that led to a Congressional investigation, jail for one Congressman, subpoenas and a generally wild time.

What stunned me was the picture. In the background was a copy of my 1977 book, The Washington Connection. The book was turned to the photo section in the middle where I described how we put shredded documents back together.

The photo section is reproduced below. And below that …

Note the bags on the wall. These are the results of a first, sort process where we looked for shreds that were of similar paper stock.

… the scan of a dusty, wrinkled and yellowed clipping from The Washington Post describing what we did and how. It’s one of the few scraps I still have.

I have looked everywhere for the photo of the Iranians using my book. I don’t have it because I never kept one.

I felt ashamed and angry. I took the newspaper back to my London B&B and tossed it after reading it.

So, here’s the real story:

We worked in tight quarters because we were on a tight budget. When the subpoena for the shreds was issued from the House Ethics Committee we were on the run, packing the shreds in plastic garbage bags and setting up shops in different locations in D.C., including over a porno shop/peep-show parlor.

Sometimes we got almost complete documents.

Click TWICE on the image above for a larger, more readable one.

Sometimes, we failed to get an entire documents, but what we had was devastating. Sadly, Congress does a crappy job of investigating itself (surprise!) and a lot of people who should have gone to jail did not. The Congressional ethics thugs took all of our finished work as well as the shreds. They took the really good ones — those with dollar amounts by the names — and other damning evidence. And seem to have deep-sixed it all.

(CLICK TWICE ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO GET A REALLY BIG, READABLE ONE.)

Below, a pretty darned good article describing some of our escapades.

Click the image for a larger, readable view

I take the MacBook everywhere, so I needed a second power brick to travel. The charger at the Apple store was $80. So, late last month, I turned to Amazon and bought a 60 watt supply for $38.87 (below) from one of their Marketplace vendors. The purchase was no bargain at all.

The first time I unplugged the power supply, the plug fell apart (below)

It turned out to be a counterfeit. I had an iStore expert confirm the counterfeit status.

Amazon refunded my money immediately. Kudos.

The counterfeits are very realistic, the differences mostly subtle. Some less so.
The image below shows the counterfeit at the top genuine at the bottom. Note the difference in the typeface. The genuine Apple typeface is lighter, more subtle.

Note the difference in the stress reliever fitting where the cord attaches to the brick. The counterfeit (obviously on left with broken AC plug)  is shorter, thicker, and has a little hole in it.

In addition, the Apple logo on the counterfeit one is slick and shiny like the rest of the brick while the genuine Apple has a matte finish. Does not show up well in photos.

The photo below shows the genuine Apple on the left. Counterfeit on right. The Apple cord is supple and has a matte texture on the insulation. It coils well and resists kinking.

The counterfeit (right) has a stiff cord with a slick shiny surface. It’s stiff and easily kinks.

The counterfeit (below), is lighter – 197 grams.

The real Apple power supply, below, is heavier, 234 grams.

There are other differences, especially if you open up the case. But I don’t want to crack open the genuine article.

The Federal Aviation Administration is wrong and either misinformed or involved in a cover-up when it says hackers can’t take over a modern aircraft: Authorities dismiss alleged airplane hijack hack.

If you click on that link, please read the comments. They are far more intelligent, thoughtful and  illuminating than the FAA’s.

Truth is that neither the FAA nor the global airline industry nor any country’s air transport regulators can afford to let the flying public know how buggy, unpredictable and hackable the flight control systems in a modern fly-by-wire aircraft really are. The economic consequences of those disclosures would be too disastrous. Just look at what the Icelandic volcano flight delays did to airline profits.

The following is from my heavily researched, investigative thriller, Die By Wire. This excerpt shows the “good guys” beginning to figure out how the bad guys are going to do a 9/11 the global aviation industry.

Future posts here will detail (without spoilers) more about how this is so very doable.

FROM DIE BY WIRE

“How could we get a modern fly-by-wire aircraft to commit suicide?”

“Remember, cockpit controls today lack physical connections.” Noord’s voice carried the authority of someone who had flown the very aircraft he had helped design. “No cables, no hydraulic links between the wheels and pedals to the wings, the engines, to the tail.”

Noord paused. His nose and upper lip curled like he had just gotten a whiff of a loathsome odor.

“Pilots today don’t fly an aircraft anymore,” he said. “Much of the judgment is taken out of their hands and placed in the bowels of the computers. We have a saying that the cockpit of today consists of two men and a dog. The first man is there to watch the computer display. The dog is there to bite him if he tries to touch anything. The second man is there to feed the dog. Sadly, today’s airline pilot plays a glorified video game of a Flight Simulator.”

“But why?” Mira asked.

“Economics mostly, “Noord explained. “Eliminating direct physical controls means a big weight savings, no hydraulic pumps, tubing, fluid and reservoirs. That trims fuel costs. The computer software can also build in limits to keep pilots from using their best judgment.”

Noord paused, cleared his throat.

“And in an insane effort to save even more money, the very newest aircraft are starting to use wireless connections instead of wires, a sort of WII Fit and WiFi meets avionics.”

“Sir?” Theo raised a deferential hand. “All of our other aviation sources say that fly-by-wire control systems have backups that have backups. Three different hardware systems from three different manufacturers running three different operating systems that check everything against each other. Nothing has ever malfunctioned.”

Noord’s laughter conveyed scorn, skepticism, weary resignation.

“There have been many reported… anomalies. Loss of power, blanked out displays, instrument and control malfunctions. Some happen only once and most times the software engineers never determine the cause. All have been deemed within operational limits. Pilots have learned to live with the unpredictability of unpredictable events.”

“Unpredictability of unpredictable events ….” Theo’s voice came soft and vague. “Within operational limits.”

Oblivious to the baffled looks around him, the gifted mathematician craned his head at the ceiling, his gaze fixed on a distant horizon. He worked his head this direction and that.

“Chaos theory.” He nodded at something only he could see.

Comprehension pinched his lips and sliced deep vertical lines between his brows.

“You’ve heard of the ‘butterfly effect,’ yes? The concept that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon could create … result in a hurricane in Florida?”

Heads nodded.

“Tiny unseeable effects that strengthen each other in just the right way can amplify a very small effect into a very large one,” Theo continued.

“But wouldn’t system redundancies and flight testing prevent that happening in a computer?” Stocker asked.

“That would make it less probable,” Theo shook his head. “Not impossible.”

“Experience bears that out,” Noord said, “especially with the phenomenon of aeronautical flutter.”

Eyebrows arched.

“No matter how good the design of new aircraft, flight testing always reveals resonant flutters at various speed configurations,” explained Noord. “Many of these can shake the aircraft apart. To prevent that, flutter testing involves an extensive, and expensive, airworthiness certification.

“Because even small changes can alter flutters in big ways, aircraft are tested in every possible configuration: empty, full and partially loaded at every intermediate level, with uneven fuel loadings, with every possible engine, engine cowling, simulated ice build-up. You name it, everything the engineers can think of.

“Before fly-by-wire,” Noord continued, “flutter testing was accomplished by adding weights to the wings, or the control surfaces, physically altering various parts of the aircraft to see what would cause flutter, instability or some other malfunction. But with fly-by-wire, the actual flight control computers are programmed to shake, rattle and roll the plane’s control surfaces. Re-engineering physical components fixes some flutter problems and others are patched up by altering the computer code to prevent pilots from executing maneuvers that would cause an instability.”

“Conversely, you could crash a plane by programming the fly-by-wire system to cause flutter instabilities,” Mira asked. “Especially known flutter problems that engineers fixed only in software, not on the aircraft itself.”

“Theoretically,” Noord said. “But you’d have to have direct access to the computers and software in a manner that could coordinate a number of simultaneous crashes. That level of access is unlikely.”

“Not if you were Tau Partners,” Theo said, “which has the world’s biggest database of system flaws. That could be exploited to create a failure cascade that could predictably cause numbers of aircraft to self-destruct on command. To disappear over deep water without a trace.”

Hijacking airplanes with an Android phone is SO three years ago!

Why?

Because this thriller, Die By Wire details an even more effective way to do this. I wrote it more than three years ago. I was published in December 2011.

The following two links will offer more insight into the hack that goes far beyond the relatively simple Android phone exploit:

• Modern Fly-By-Wire Aircraft Could Be Die-By-Wire Death Traps
• The Prelude To Fictional (And Real-Life) Aircraft Disappearances: Hacking Unencrypted GPS:

True, the Die By Wire hack used a modified laptop, but the conclusion is the same: The fly-by-wire computers in a modern aircraft can be hacked, hijacked and become a real-time version of Flight Simulator for the bad guys.

FAA, OTHERS POINT OUT WEAKNESSES IN ANDROID HACK

I agree with the two articles, below, that the Android hack described this week is way too simple to do the whole job.

In fact, I started with the same logic and looked at the exact two signals more than three years ago when I started my research. I realized then that it could not take control of the entire aircraft. So, I expanded on the concept in order to make 24 Airbuses disappear over the Atlantic. Simultaneously.

In a follow-up article published yesterday in Bloomberg Businessweek, the U.S. Federal Aviation Admnistration said that the Android phone exploit could not, by itself, allow a hacker to hijack an aircraft.

Then The Atlantic Wire ran this piece: No, That German Hacker Probably Can’t Hijack an Airplane with Software .

Both articles are right about the Android hack. But that still leaves the one I created for Die By Wire.

And, yes, some of the very specific details were omitted in the book.

The last time I got really specific about things I developed, the Iranians who took over the American Embassy used them as step-by-step instructions.

Since then, I have blurred a few things. After all, I travel on fly-by, die-by-wire aircraft too, mostly because there’s little choice left.