Seegras Logbook

I’ve been sceptical about offerings of Security as Service. It’s sounds an awful lot like “Outsourcing Security”, and security is a process which involves every aspect of business or life.

However, I’m working now in a company which does just that, selling Security as Service. And I think it can work. As opposed to any other company which sells you a product, or some other services, if you’re selling security, you’ve got an interest in your customers security not being breached. Because you will loose that customer.

If you’re a Bank, you sell banking services. As long as the cost of one of your clients accounts being misused is not really your cost, the security of your clients is a total non-issue. The same goes for vendors of security-appliances. The client bought it, and already paid it, so if somebody hacks it, it’s not really your problem, unless you get bad publicity out of it.

And we’ve seen with the whole “full-disclosure”-debate, that bad publicity is a very weak instrument, and some companies can take hideous amounts of it before they improve security. Microsoft is the classical example; it took them aeons to do something about security, and the security of its products is still very weak.

On the other hand, if you get paid by subscription, you have a very real interest in keeping the customer. That means you have an interest of providing the services you are being paid for. If it’s not security the client pays for, this also means that security is probably not your concern (as seen with banks and credit card companies).

Of course, security embedded in you company will be much more capable and resilient. You can design every process with security in mind. You can choose specific products with a good security track-record. You can have system administrators with a very intimate knowledge of your network and IT-landscape, who can provide for a very fine-grained incident-response and emergency management.

But most smaller companies can’t have that. Because they don’t have the expertise, the money to hire specialists, and most of all, an IT-landscape that is not modeled by security-considerations but by habit. And habit is of course the biggest foe of security. It could be his friend too, but old habits die hard, and most people today grew up in a world where not everything was networked, and where systems of a company which gave a damn about networks and security were, and still are, prevalent. So the people in these companies don’t have the slightest clue about security, e-mail their passwords around, get their negotiations eavesdropped on mobile phones, infect their computers with viruses and get their e-banking accounts phished.

And this is where Security as Service can help. It can’t make you into a company where everything is secure. But it can mitigate some of the effects the security-unconscious acts of your employees cause. It can filter out malicious emails before someone can click on it, or some stupid mail client executes the malware-payload on its own. It can encrypt the emails at least between hosts. It can keep the botnets at bay that try to penetrate your servers. And it can provide incident-response if something goes wrong.

And finally, Security as Service is the fundamental better idea than Security as Product. Because Security is a Process, it never ends; and because with any product you bought, the sale is done, and the supplier is only interested in selling you another product, but not in making the already sold product better. Furthermore, if you lack the expertise, will you even be able to manage the product correctly?

There are those who can, with in-house security expertise, where it would be stupid to outsource it. But for the rest of us, there’s at least a certain measure of security available with Security as Service.

Die Credit Suisse will auf ein neues SMS-Sicherheitsverfahren umstellen. Benutzbar mit a) Einem Handy b) welches eine Schweizer Landesvorwahl hat c) eine Vorwahl von 076, 077, 078 oder 079 hat.

Sobald man auf der DirectNet-E-Banking-Seite einzuloggen versucht wird einem mitgeteilt dass die bisherige SecurID-Authentifikation noch 7 Tage lang gültig sei.

Was haben die Sicherheitspezialisten der Credit Suisse geraucht? Oder sind die aus einer Anstalt entflohen?

Wer auch nur die geringste Ahnung von “Sicherheit” hat, dem fallen sofort einige ganz gravierende Probleme (abgesehen von “Usability”-Problemen, für Leute im Ausland z.b.) mit diesem “SMS-Sicherheitsverfahren auf:

• SMS sind abhörbar. In Real-Time. Das wurde am Chaos Computer Club Congress 2009 bewiesen (und sämtlicher SMS-Traffic auf dem Kongress gleich live auf einem Beamer angezeigt).
• Smartphones werden immer mehr als Ziel für Malware interessant, je mehr sie Funktionen übernehmen für die früher ein ausgewachsener Computer benötigt wurde.
• Das “Token” (das Mobiltelefon nämlich) an das die Authentifikation gebunden ist, ist DER Gegenstand weltweit der am meisten verloren und gestohlen wird.
• Es ist eine enorme Datenschutzverletzung. Nun ist jedes Konto mit einer Telefonnummer gekoppelt. Gleichzeitig ist es auch noch möglich den Standort von Mobiltelefonen zu Triangulieren.

Und das ist nur das was mir sofort eingefallen ist.

Der einzige Vorteil der ersichtlich wäre, ist dass die Authentifizierung Out-Of-Band erfolgen könnte, was für Benutzer mit kompromittierten Windows-Kisten einen Vorteil darstellen kann. Der ist aber sofort wieder weg wenn man a) dasselbe Smartphone gleich fürs E-Banking benutzt b) sich Malware auf den Telefonen verbreitet. Aber vorallem c) muss der Code den man per SMS erhält so wie es jetzt implementiert ist trotzdem per Browser zurück übermittelt werden. Was die ganze Übung hinfällig macht.

Es gäbe schon ideen wie man sowas wirklich sicher machen könnte, aber die involvieren dann Karten mit Keypads und Methoden zur Out-Of-Band Übermittlung. Und nicht dasselbe wie vorher, bloss neu nun auf einem Gerät welches abgehört, gestohlen und verloren wird.

Es handelt sich hier um eine offensichtlich reine Geschäftsentscheidung. Für die CS ist die Frage einzig und allein die: Was kostet das System, was sind die zu erwarteten Aufwände für den Token-Verlust und schlussendlich, was sind die Aufwände wenn es von Dritten misbraucht wird. Mit dem SecurID-System bestehen die Aufwände in der Ausgabe der SecurID, und den Auswechseln derselben bei Verlust. Mit dem SMS-System ist es im Betrieb das senden der SMS, der Aufwand bei Verlust ist für die CS geringer da der Hauptaufwand da vom Benutzer getragen wird. Bei den Aufwänden durch Misbrauch seitens Dritten dürfte die CS erwarten dass die in etwa dieselben bleiben, da das neue System etwa die selben Schwachstellen hat wie das alte (respektive die Kosten für neue Schwachstellen nicht von der CS getragen werden müssen, z.b. in Form von Privatsphäreverlust) und Entwicklungen wie Smartphones die das ganz Ad-Absurdum führen könnten hat man vermutlich ignoriert, da bisher noch keine entsprechenden Misbrauchsfälle aufgetreten sind. Man hat sich wohl gegen eine wirkliche Out-Of-Band-Authentifizierung entschieden, da das vermutlich wesentlich teurer würde, und sich die momentanen Aufwände bei Misbrauch offenbar in Grenzen bewegen.

Die Sicherheit für den Endbenutzer war für die CS nie das Thema. Solange sich die Kosten der CS für misbrauchte Konten im Rahmen bewegen, und sie nicht übermässig schlechte Publicity wegen mangelnder Sicherheit bekommen, hat die CS nicht das geringste Interesse daran E-Banking sicherer zu machen. Nur billiger.

Ganz schlimm ist auch dass man den Kunden offensichtlich nicht die Wahl lassen will, die für sie meist sicherere SecurID weiterzubenutzen. Wenn die nicht von Fall zu Fall einlenken (in meinem nämlich ganz bestimmt), dann werde ich das tun was man in einer Marktwirtschaft in so einem Fall tut: Mit den Stiefeln wählen gehen.

Addendum: Ich habe angerufen, und scheinbar haben sie nun die Laufzeit für meine SecurID verlängert. Mir wurde aber mitgeteilt dass sobald eine andere Lösung für nicht-schweizer Mobiltelefone etc. exisitert, das SecurID-System abgeschaltet würde.

Addendum Zwei: Seit ich das im April 2010 geschrieben habe, haben endlich auch andere bemerkt dass das eine schleichte Idee ist: Telcos declare SMS ‘unsafe’ for bank transactions Selbstverständlich wird es auch schon misbraucht Präventionshinweis für Onlinebanking im mTAN-Verfahren

Tote erzählen keine Geschichten

Zumindest nicht bevor sie nicht seit 70 Jahren tot sind.

Denn erst 70 Jahre nach dem Tod des Urhebers läuft das Urheberrecht und die zugehörigen Nutzungsrechte aus. Zumindest in der Schweiz, der EU und der USA. Mit dem Erfolg dass kein Rechteinhaber ein Interesse hat mässig erfolgreiche Werke, auch wissenschaftliche, nachzudrucken, da diese in Konkurrenz mit neuen Werken stehen könnten, und gleichzeitig niemand anders die Werke nachdrucken darf, bis die Zombies nach 70 Jahren endlich wirklich tot und begraben sind und das Werk gemeinfrei wird.

Wer die Toten weckt…

Die Konsequenz dieser absurden Frist ist auch dass nun das ganze Urheberrecht von einem Grossteil der Bevölkerung nicht mehr ernst genommen wird, wie schon Thomas Babington Macauley 1841(!) gewarnt hat: “And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.”

In Deutsch: “Und ihr werdet herausfinden, dass ihr mit der Versuch unvernünftige Restriktionen über das Nachdrucken von Werken von Toten einzuführen, zu einem grossen Teil die Hemmungen die heute die Leute davon abhalten die Lebenden zu Plündern und zu Betrügen, annuliert habt.”

Und er hat recht behalten. Die einzig sinnvolle Konsequenz daraus kann nur sein die Urheberrechtsfristen rigoros zu kürzen. Weder ein drakonisches Urheberrechts-Regime noch immer längere Fristen werden diesen Respekt zurückbringen im Gegenteil; mit jeder Verschärfung und Verlängerung verliert das Urhberrecht noch mehr an Glaubwürdigkeit.

Mehr Lebendig als Tot

Die zweite Konsequenz kann nur mit absoluter Dummheit und Ignoranz seitens der Gesetzgeber erklärt werden. Aus der Tatsache dass diese Rechte über den Tod hinaus geltend sind leitet sich nämlich ein Erbrecht ab. Und damit ist die Büchse der Pandora geöffnet die das ganze Urheberrecht selbst seiner Funktion beraubt.

In einem Forum sucht ein Erbe in der 4. Generation herauszufinden wer denn sonst noch Erbe eines bestimmten Malers sein könnte, von dem er im Rahmen eines Zeitschriftenartikels Werke veröffentlichen wollte. Mit anderen Worten, die Urheber- und Nutzungsrechte für diese Werke sind nun auf beliebig viele Personen verteilt, Anzahl unbekannt, es könnte eine Person sein, aber auch 50. Jede dieser Personen hat kein Recht selber etwas davon zu veröffentlichen, aber jede davon hat ein Recht jegliche Veröffentlichung zu verhindern. Und das ist noch nicht der schlimmste Fall. Bei Werken die von mehreren Urhebern gemeinsam geschaffen wurden wurden gilt dies für sämtliche Beteiligten, respektive deren Erben. Was bei Filmen durchaus hunderte Personen sein können.

Tot und Begraben

Das ist das was diese Schutzfrist über den Tod hinaus schon lange sein sollte.

• Sie verhindert Nachdrucke in dem sie es Verlegern ermöglicht die mit neuen Werken um die Aufmerksamkeit des Konsumenten buhlende alte Werke unter Verschluss zu behalten.
• Sie vernichtet aus obigem Grund auch gleich alte Zellulose-Azetat-Filme welche zwischenzeitlich zu Essig werden. Und manchmal auch andere Werke die entweder nur in Kleinauflagen vorhanden waren, oder noch gar nicht publiziert waren und Opfer eines Brandes oder einer anderen Katastrophe werden.
• Sie verhindert Publikationen durch Aufspaltung von Erbmasse. Und vernichtet damit ebenfalls Kultur, da auch diese Werke Opfer einer Katastrophe werden können.
• Sie verzögert Neubearbeitungen von älteren Werken und führt damit ebenfalls zu einem geringeren Korpus an Publikationenen.
• Sie vermindert den Respekt gegenüber dem Gesetz selbst.

I tried to make hostapd use a separate psk-file, with a different PSK per MAC-address. On Debian the file is called /etc/hostapd/wpa_psk and according to /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf:

# Optionally, WPA PSKs can be read from a separate text file (containing list
# of (PSK,MAC address) pairs. This allows more than one PSK to be configured.

This is fucking WRONG. The file-format is not documented anywhere else, and the above is utter bogus. The file has to look like this:
00:00:00:00:00:00 somepskstring

The 00:00:00:00:00:00 of course would have to be replaced by a real MAC-address. The MAC-address all zeroed out might signify a wildcard, but then, this isn’t documented either.

By the way, if you do not want it bloody bridged, you need to set up the interface just like normal in /etc/network/interfaces, and take care that it’s served by dhcp and has appropriate firewall-rules.

Stupidity and misunderstanding on how security works has reached new heights in the USA: TSA: Enhanced screening for people flying to U.S. from certain nations.

How bloody stupid must one be to react this way to a failed attack? Yes, failed means exactly that a security measure — in this case a terrorist attack that was thwarted by passengers(!) — works. But instead of relying more on what obviously works, the TSA (and of course, this one is backed by the government; proving that Bush and Obama really do the same bollocks) has decided to implement something else, something incredibly stupid which will actually lower security.

Security professionals worldwide don’t even know if they should laugh or cry at such a bold display of imbecility. I’ve not yet seen what Bruce Schneier has to say about this specific idiocy, but here’s an essay which essentially explains the issue: Screening People with Clearances. Just so you can see that I’m not the only security professional who thinks this way, and Bruce Schneier has rather more clout than me. ;)

Do you really think terrorists won’t be likely to fly NOT from those 14 countries? Or — gosh — use a false passport? Hell, they might even recruit people from a country deemed “safer”, the USA itself for instance. And of course, increased scrutiny of certain passengers will draw resources from scrutinizing other passengers.

Congratulations, you’ve just implemented a fast lane for terrorists while harassing other passengers coming from some 14 countries. Mindbogglingly stupid. According to Hanlon’s Razor I’m forced to conclude that the USA is run by drooling idiots.

Addendum: Bruce Schneier has now put it nicely: Christmas Bomber: Where Airport Security Worked. I can only add “and in whose aftermath common sense did not”.

Whenever technology solves a problem with scarcity, somebody steps in to keep the scarcity by means of politics, wealth, power, propaganda.

• case in point: patents were probably NOT introduced to further innovations, but to keep others innovations down, so the own innovations would be worth more.
• case in point: copyright. As it became easy to print and reprint, and content-producers (or more often, the printers) wanted to have a temporary monopoly on it. As it became even more easy trough the internet, the laws became more draconian.
• case in point: revenue services. Not only it fills the coffers of the state, but it also keeps foreign competition out of the own markets. And with trademarks, it can be used to keep cheap imitations out of the market.

The irony of this when it pertains to intangible goods, is that the corpus of works is much bigger than anyone on earth can digest. In effect, the availability of such an enormous amount of works has created an “economy of attention”. Since every living being has access to more works he can read, listen to or watch in his lifetime, you need to goad him into “consuming” your work; and preferably to pay for it. Apart from marketing, how do you do that? Maybe by putting a monopoly on works you’re not even interested in? With the hope that most of those works will not be available to the public…

As a follow-up on Conservatism isn’t, I found it necessary to say that “liberalism” also isn’t applied to its meaning, but to two different things, depending on European or American cultural background.

As per definition, liberalism is “the belief in the importance of individual freedom”. This is of course the opposite of “totalitarianism”, and not the opposite of “conservatism” (whose opposite would be “progressivism”).

Now, in Europe, liberalism has taken on the meaning of a hard “economic liberalism”, meaning “the belief in the importance of freedom for companies only”. Capitalism, if you wish. In the USA, it has taken quite another meaning, some kind of “social liberalism”. This is a bit more difficult to express with a similar phrase like the above, it’s more like “Welfare is more important than freedom” (on the other side, the European version from above could be put as “Economy is more important than freedom”).

The main point about both these views is, that “liberalism” is not any more associated with individual freedom, but in one case with a freedom for business to override individual freedom (in order for economy to prosper), and in the other case with the freedom of the state to override individual freedom (in order to guarantee welfare).

Apparently, liberals (in the original sense) have noticed this shift of meaning, and can now be found as “libertarians”. Apart from widely-differing opinions on everything else, they can indeed be characterised by what was initially the definition of liberalism: “the belief in the importance of individual freedom”.

In History…
Heroes distinguish themselves by wearing elaborate cloth and headgear
In Hollywood…
Heroes distinguish themselves by wearing no headgear, no jacket (shirt only), and generally running around like the poorest peasant.

In History…
Heroes wear helmets in battle.
In Hollywood…
Heroes take off their helmets before battle. If they ever wore a helmet.

In History…
Swords are worn in wooden or leather scabbards until late 19th century
In Hollywood…
Drawing a sword always gives a metal-on-metal sound.

In History…
Swords are worn in wooden or leather scabbards until late 19th century
In Hollywood…
Drawing a sword always gives a metal-on-metal sound.

In History…
Black powder appears 1242 on the European battlefields.
In Hollywood…
Any black powder weapon used in in the middle ages will baffle everyone, since they can’t ever have encountered it as it does not fit into Hollywoods image of the middle ages.

In History…
Nobody lights his house or castle with torches for fear of a fire.
In Hollywood…
Everyone uses torches indoors. And they don’t even need to be replaced, they will burn 50 years or more once lit, especially in caves.

In History…
Guns until about 1850 are muzzle-loaders and only fire one shot until reloaded again.
In Hollywood…
The average muzzle-loader can fire several times. And you never see anyone reloading it, because the guys in the studio also have no idea on how it’s done.

In History…
It could happen that the British capture a Nazi U-Boat and manage to decrypt the codes with the help of polish Scientists.
In Hollywood…
US-Americans will capture the U-Boat, even before they’ve even entered the war and will decrypt everything themselves. Except for the Japanese code “Purple”, because that would mean their government could have known about the attack on Pearl Harbour hours before it happened.

In History…
It often happens that no US-American is involved in some heroic deed. Or that along US-Americans other people from other nations were involved.
In Hollywood…
Some US-American saves the day. If somebody else did it, US-Americans did it now. If somebody helped, like some thousands of Canadian troops, they are not shown in the movie.

In History…
A knight is proud of being a knight, tries to behave as such and certainly wears clothes and armour of a knight.
In Hollywood…
A knight might run around in a towel, a face painted blue like some picts did 1200 years earlier, and still lead a rebellion against the British.

In History…
The Scots really wore kilts, and claymores and broadswords. In the late 17th and the 18th century that is. They fought against British redcoats who mostly had muskets and bayonets.
In Hollywood…
Ah well. You already guessed it. They always do that; no matter the historical evidence.

In History…
Some cities in the middle ages found it necessary to limit bathing for its inhabitants to three times a week, because its infrastructure couldn’t live up to the demand.
In Hollywood…
People in the middle ages are always filthy, but most spot gleaming white teeth.

In History…
Plate Armour is mostly made to fit the wearer and made in the style of the time.
In Hollywood…
Plate Armour is made from whatever pieces are left from previous productions and in an style from 14th to 18th century. Except for helmets, those are in style from the early iron age to the 18th century.

In History…
People thatched their roofs very tight, 20-50cm thick.
In Hollywood…
Thatched roofs are see-trough and only on houses used by peasants.

In History…
People knew from the writings of Greek philosophers from A.D 300 upwards that the earth was round.
In Hollywood…
People from the middle-ages believe in a flat-earth.

In History…
People had a lower life-expectancy than today. Something like 60 years instead of 75. But if you factor in infant mortality, you get a mean of only 30 years.
In Hollywood…
People in the middle ages of course only have a life-expectancy of 30 years.

In History…
People wear shoes of their time, in the middle ages for instance turned-shoes without heels.
In Hollywood…
The Hero wears 19th century heeled cavalry boots.

In History…
The joined hose/trousers got out of style in the early middle ages, to be replaced by separate hoses. The joined hose comes back in the 15th century (with a codpiece).
In Hollywood…
The Hero does not wear separate hoses.

In History…
The Romans ridiculed hoses, they called them “feminalia” implying only women would wear them. And certainly would not like to wear them.
In Hollywood…
Romans wear hoses. Because the actors would feel nude, and it would conflict Hollywoods morality standards.

In History…
Most cannon-balls are just that: balls of stone or iron. The explosive shell is a relatively recent invention; explosive ammunition appears in the 17th century and is only shot by mortars. The first explosive shell for a flat-trajectory-gun appears 1823.
In Hollywood…
All guns shoot explosive shells.

In History…
People have weird haircuts in certain epochs. Long hair was considered a sign of nobility in the middle ages, and later a sign of a gentleman until the early 19th century (tough you could wear a powdered wig if you didn’t have long hair).
In Hollywood…
Hairstyles mostly reflect the time when the movie was made. Thus we get short-haired Ivanhoes, long-haired WWII aviators, and crop-haired Tudors.

In History…
The widht of belts varies with the epoch. They Merowingians wore huge belts. So did one in the 17th century. But in the middle ages, they wore very thin belts, 1-2cm in width.
In Hollywood…
It’s supposed to be historical, so people have to wear huge belts, besides some other historical movies did it like that before.

In History…
People sometimes are ugly.
In Hollywood…
Actors are not chosen by their likeness to the historical person they are supposed to represent, but according to their prominence. Behold the slim and handsome Henry VIII. And the straight-nosed Wellington.

In History…
Heroes sometimes have a very dark side as murderers, rapists or slavers.
In Hollywood…
Any dark deeds of the Hero are never shown, whereas the the designated Villain gets attributed every imaginable crime, including mass-murder, even if the historical evidence says otherwise.

See Also
Classic Cliches for the Medieval Historical Movie
Troy: Hollywood vs. Homer
Hollywood Rewrites History
Hollywood hokum: Fake history in films wipes out the facts learnt in class
Novelist condemns Hollywood’s yen to rewrite history as cultural imperialism
Hollywood Censors History (PDF)

Font-Management in TeX is a huge mess. It’s such a mess that there is not even one coherent tutorial on how to install fonts exists, and nobody ever automated it. Imagine: You put your TrueType or Type1 fonts somewhere into /usr/share/fonts, your system regenerates its font-cache, and they not only are available for KDE, Gnome, Mozilla and OpenOffice, but also for TeX? You wish. Instead you’re expected to produce custom font-encoding files by hand, extract font-metric-files (tfm) out of TrueType-files, invent 6-letter font-shortcut-names, and edit some other files in order that TeX can find them with these shortcut-names. In other words, the whole thing should be burned at the stake, shredded, buried and shot into outer space.

The only thing that actually works out of the Box is XeTeX/XeLaTeX:

apt-get install texlive-xetex

Now you need to know the correct name of the font you want to use, as reported by fc-list:

$ fc-list | grep Bastarda
MA Bastarda1 15th:style=Normal

And you can use this in TeX-documents:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec,xunicode,xltxtra}
\setmainfont{MA Bastarda1 15th}
\begin{document}
Test. Umlauts need to be UTF-8 encoded: ÀöÌ
\end{document}

If your TeX-document happens to use utf8mb4 instead of utf8, recode will help:

recode utf8mb4..utf8 whetever.tex

Now you need to use xelatex instead of texi2pdf or pdflatex to produce a pdf-file:

$ xelatex whatever.tex

That’s it, and that’s how it should bloody work everywhere, with every TeX-util of the day you might want to use.

There are actually two kinds of conservatism (or conservativism). One who adheres to the basic idea of what conservatism should be, and a much more popular version which actually has no relation to conservatism, apart from calling itself that.

What is the primordial conservative idea? Simple: Change is dangerous. It should either not be allowed, or if it should be allowed, then only in a very slow pace. Every new idea has to prove its merit first, before it should be implemented in society.

Now, what we’ve got with most parties and people who call themselves “conservative”, is something altogether different, as far removed from the above idea of “conservatism” as the dictator Stalin from the idea of “communism”.

The idea is much more “everything was better in the past”; whereas the “past” does not correspond to any historical reality, but to an idealistic picture of “how it should be” projected into history. Most self-termed conservatives might agree to the above mentioned idea that “everything was better in the past”, but of course would vehemently deny that their “past” differs from historical reality.

Historical reality is not easy to grasp, and there is also a huge mismatch between what is actually known by scientists, and what is taught in schools or popularised by novels, movies or the media. Indeed they do reflect a picture of history much more in line with this “past” of conservatives than with historical reality.

To give you an example: Anti-Abortionists mostly think that laws allowing abortion are a relatively recent development, and this recent development has to be reverted. However, the reality is, that those laws disallowing abortion completely, are also a relatively new product of the rising piety in the modern age. In the middle ages, abortion up to the third month of pregnancy was allowed. Abortion was allowed (with some constraints) in christian society for more than 1500 years. So in fact, the idea that abortion may not be allowed under whatever circumstances is totally, radically NEW, and not in any way a conservative idea. And the same applies to a lot of ideas brought forth by self-termed conservatives.

Even the most basic ideas about the past are totally wrong. “I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless
beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly know-it-alls and impatient of restraint”. The quote is, of course, not a modern one, but from Hesiod, 800 B.C. And this goes on trough the ages. In every generation someone complains that the youth has no respect. Either our present society is already completely depraved (including those complaining about the lack of respect, since they logically also must have had parents they did not respect), and each generation has had less respect for their elders, or more likely, this is a total artificial construct. Hesiod does nothing more than to project his wish “The youth should show more respect to elders” into the past to legitimise it. He casually overlooks that when he was young the elders probably also thought he was disrespectful.

This is exactly the same behaviour we’re seeing nowadays under the name of “conservatism”. Projecting ones radical ideas into the past to legitimise them, and to not let the ideas appear as radical as they really are.

Another wondrous device is to drop facts from history, and then demand the return to that modified “past”. For instance, the idea that women should only do the household and take care of the children. The problem with that is, that this has been radically changed by the industrialisation, men were suddenly no longer working at home (where they took over some parts of household-chores, and certainly aspects of parenting and education) but somewhere in a factory. And of course, before that, women were also working on goods that were sold. In effect, in the pre-industrial society, both women and men did both, household, parenting and “work for money”. Of course, depending on society, some things were deemed “mans work” and some “womans work”, but that does not alter the fact that both were available at home, and both did household chores and work which would earn money. Now, where “back” do you want to go? Do you want to forbid men to work at factories or companies too? Of course not. Ignore some facts, invent a “past” which suits your ideology and dub yourself “conservative”.

And today, most of what is termed “conservatism”, even by self-declaration, isn’t. It’s pure camouflage for radical ideas, projected into some invented “past” to legitimate them. The same of course, goes with the label “traditionalist”.