Information Risk Management – Page 3 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Lagging, nagging ‘Coin feeling

Somehow, the many (?) Cassandra’s messages of late about Bitcoin being a hyped-up bubble about to burst and how it’s the laggerds (only) that now want to jump in, drive up prices but will be the Greater Fools in the game, sounds a bit … false bottom.
[Unsure what the exchange rate is, today. Has the bubble burst already, or ..?]

I’d say, how many countries, and moreover how great a many financial organisations (private or public, or regulatory or inter/supranational) may have an interest to blow up Bitcoin, as a demonstrator that all that blockchain stuff isn’t any good after all ..? Because the promise of blockchain was, and is, that it will not need any, traditionally somehow still geography-bound, standing governing body avalanched-under by politics, gross misunderstanding of the core concepts ruled over, etc. In short, power struggles.
And that, of course, may be a future that some will not allow. And fight to their deaths – inevitably, not by nature but by cause and earlier. But still they simply won’t have it, that blockchain/Bitcoin/smart-contract/whatevva shazam. With the only way to get rid of it in an inconspicuous manner, is to … inflate it till it goes borsht. Risk, but possibly profit hugely during the trip ..? Case in point: this one [hope the link is still valid, and it’s in Dutch which may mix semantic levels to be tauto]

Plus:
[You get a golden bullet-like thing on your pillow. With compliments and filled with chocolate, that is… In Salzburg of course]

The Pursuit of Triviality

Today being the day of the real Sinterklaas (as here), we also learn (not!) to cherish the small gifts. As in this effect, but otherwise. [That sounds weird…]
But the effect is too, all the same. And so ubiquitous that we may even lose sensitivity towards, or against [here we go again] it. And that is a problem. Because darn, how can we even think to train AI in rational business decision making, when all learning examples, and/or actual practical deployment, will be tainted / rife with such irrational biases? We so commonly swipe, shuffle them softly, under the rug that here we have such an AI-applicability-wrecking issue that we hear so much about lately. [No you don’t, compared to what would be enough, hardly anything at all…]

Another example of knowing your classics, eh? Oh well. Plus:
[Noooo, not those classics again! Saltzb’]

The Boring Wine Inn (3 @MichelinGuides stars)

Maybe the relevance of Michelin stars, and accompanying guide, would increase if,
Apart from losing the numbing down, bland-isation of any food innovation by chefs to a style that is either Boring in itself already or a quick to wear off gimmick, that obtaining or even striving for a star(s) often turns into, just to please the judges and don’t forget a bucket of salt (yes, don’t lie to me)
The wine list were innovative, too. By which I don’t mean that the wine list couldn’t have some classics but where the all but most insanely priced items (all tend to sit at some 4-8 times cost anyway, extortionistly – bring that down to 2-3x and your profits go throught the roof all the same) have something new. Fresh, beyond the well-trodden paths. The latter, being the average+ quality (if one’s lucky) of the go-with-the-flow (of up to and including last year’s fashion) appelations – with too many New World ones that are so cheap to get. Or from secondary regions of the Old World where the top can still be had at below-top priced – but still with according interestingness of taste. All from the mid-size to big merchants that don’t care anymore about their products and just want to shove as many boxes as they can at incumbent-tied-in margins. Their tell: Aggression towards any that want to offer something off the wine menu for connaisseurs.
As if the chef’s innovation that once was, is enough to stay at the level that once was, qua quality and freshness one wants from top rated places. News flash: The wines can add to the experience. Big time. If one doesn’t see that, well, off you go.
And it also goes for the wine pairing / selection by the glass; how better to showcase one’s innovative wine choices in perfect matches per course ..?
Why not feel free to ask customers for their wine sophistication and preferences? Only a handful of sommeliers seem to understand. Almost all, at the true top places, without food stars.
[One notable exception encountered, in a long life of many attempts…]
[Edited to add, elsewhere: this place. A drain on your balance, but then …! What great (9) dishes, what excellent wine choices and pairing, even in the ‘simple’ recommended wine pairing.]

So that in the end we may see the return of the true relevance of stars, and see less overhyped craze over joints that suddenly get overbooked way too long in advance and start to double their prices – for nothing of the new but only the already mundane that satisfies only those running after Keeping Up With The Jones’ (“Do you know this-and-that [ill-pronounced] wine maker? Isn’t he great oh we once tasted his [name a random year], I’m on a personal basis with him because I was at the camping on the mudfield next to his’.” – no joke, heard too often in literal or similar ways…) places. Ruining it for true believers from the humble beginnings.

Oh well, and:
[If you know where, you know what I mean. Wink wink and all. Bourgogne yes but which Clos’ ?]

Now you read me, now you don’t

As a pointer to what this is about…
You know, like the oldest tricks in the book, still going strong when all the world’s (worlds’?) arms’ races are going nowhere. As predicted. Where the title of course doesn’t reference a major part of the sec controls, stego.

But that’s a finesse point. Let’s be happy that research into faster horses continues, with results.

CU!
[Stylish; what’s hiding here ..? Even when you know where]

Eternal Life

Remember Castranova’s Synthetic Worlds? You should. If only because this, is, still, in The Atlantic [edited to add: with an intelligent comment/reply here] – because that is still around, it allows for comparison of origins, and the utopical futures as described in the book, with-or-to the current state of the world. Where we have both the ‘hardly any change noticeable in current-state affairs when compared with the moonshot promises of yesterday’ and the ‘look what already has changed; the whole Mobile world change wasn’t even in those rosy pictures’ and ‘hey don’t critique yet we may only be halfway through any major tectonic humanity shifts’.
Where the latter of course ties in with the revitalised [well there‘s a question mark attached like, what do you mean by that; is it ‘life’ and would we even want that] version in ‘singularity’ the extreme nirvana of uploaded, eternal minds. As if the concept of ‘mind’ or ‘intelligence’ would make any sense, in that scenario. And also, since this (pronounced ‘Glick’ one guru told me lately; the importance of continued education), where the distinction between ‘eternal’ and ‘forever in time’ clearly plays up as in this (same), against …

In circles, or Minkovsky‘s / Penrose‘s doodles [wormholing their value], the issue comes back to flatlander (i.e., screen) reality, if there is such a thing…
Oh well; leaving you with:
[Warping perspectives, in ‘meaning’, too; Salzburg]

Noble Black edition

When first, Santa (the real one !!!) his (hey, not ‘her’ – isn’t that wrong by not being utterly iconoclast, or is gross distortion of History by such destruction of artefacts a crime against humanity?) helpers shouldn’t be blackened chimney sweepers (as they have been known to be, not people of African descent, since at least 50 years) because even in their fine dress and with important President&CEO-plus-1 level jobs and maintainers of the kindred-laws certainly over parents too, they were by definition slaves or so. Oh? Weren’t they the ones with rods to enforce the rule of naughty or nice laws? Didn’t they have the nice jobs, with obvious jealousy-inciting quality of work and management culture, being all gay (sic) and joyous whereas most of the children they would have met, and their parents, would be (sometimes literally starving) poor and probably without steady jobs ..?
And now they are changed to Spanish noblemen (qua clothes, zero ladies around because they would be unfit to work ..?) of the 16th century. Because now they’re
(claimed to be… yes really, to fit the crime-against-humanity PC only handful of, almost exclusively, one little (yes) city (literally)
whereas even those of colour (any) don’t see any problem with the original)
completely unrelated to slavery. Of course. Would one be allowed to influence public-anything let alone childrens’ festivities when being so utterly stupid? Where does open democracy break down for terrorists? Here.
Moreover, as noblemen, the new helpers are white. But of course. Otherwise, one would again distort History. And then, what jobs are there now for those of African descent, in the fun occasion? None.

Whatever. Don’t get mad, get even …? Plus:
[White factory – paint should be the only distinction and not implicate anything; Rotterdam of course]

Toepasselijke infosec

Hoe is ook anders te verwachten van een museale aangelegenheid, dan dat deze als wachtwoord minimaal 6 characters waarvan 1 hoofdletter en 1 special character eist, in tijden dat al tijden duidelijk is dat dit a. onder het vroegere, ooit-eens regime al irrelevant zwak was b. door de NIST-paper(s?) allang achterhaald is. En mijn passphrase is er natuurlijk nevernooit in te vrotten – de werkelijk veilige manier van wachtwoordgebruik is te modern ..? Hoe lang moet iets achterhaald, verouderd, dysfunctioneel zijn voor de museumclub dat oppikt en in depot neemt, niet aan de voordeur laat staan?

Ach. En:
[Wachtwoord: MVSEVM]

Maandag GDPRdag

Tsja als de GDPR er aankomt, of de AVG als u de weg kwijtbent, dan heb je nog nét even tijd om te laten zien hoe het vooral niet moet. Case in point: Een dikke catalogus op fullcolour papier versturen in een plastic verpakking – naar een adres waar er nooit om is gevraagd, nooit wat is aangevinkt of whatever.

#fail defined…

Of is dit een poging, gratis, om te laten zien dat wat nu allang niet meer kan of mag zometeen gewoon doorgaat met niet kunnen (qua maatschappelijke acceptatie) of mogen …?

Nou ja:
[Zelfs voor Straatsburg, té muddy waters…]

Gee… DPR on Profiling

This again about that pesky new legislation that just won’t go away not even before it will be legally-effectively enforced [as you know, the thing has been around already for a year and a half, but will only be enforceable, in pure theory, per upcoming May 25th but your mileage may (huh) vary greatly – when Risk = Impact x Chance [don’t get me started on the idiocy of that, as here of 2013, Dec 5th – Gift time!] the chance is Low of Low and Impact can be easily managed down, legally yes don’t FUD me that will be the truth, the whole and nothing but it. So it will be legally effective but not in any other sense let alone practically].

For those interested, there’s this piece on Profiling. That has, on p.16 last full para (‘systems‘ that audit ..!?), p.19 3rd para from the bottom “Controllers need to introduce robust measures to verify and ensure on an ongoing basis that data reused or obtained indirectly is accurate and up to date.“, p.30 in full and many other places, pointers towards … tadaaa,

Auditing AI

with here, AI as systems that process data – as close to ‘systems’ in the cybernetic sense as one may get even when needing the full-swing wormhole-distance turn of the universe consisting not of energy but of information to abstract from the difference between info and data.

Where I am developing that auditing of AI systems as a methodologically sound thing. And do invite you to join me, and bring forward your materials and ideas on how to go about that. Yes, I do have a clue already, just not the time yet to write it all up. Will do soon [contra Fermat’s marginal remark].

Oh and then there’s the tons of materials on how anyone (incl corporate persons) will have to be able to explain in no complex terms (i.e., addressing the average or even less clever) how your AI system works…

So, inviting you, and leaving you with:
[What corks are good for, well after having preserved good wine – decoration. Recycle raw materials, don’t re-use data! Ribeauville]

Aïe! Missing the Point

Yet again, some seem to not understand what they’re talking about when it comes to transparency in AI…
Like, here. Worse, this person seems to be a rapporteur to the European Economic and Social Comittee advising the European Committee. If that sounds vague – yes it does even for Europeans.

For the ‘worse’ part: The umpteenth Error, to consider that the secrecy of algorithms is the only thing that would need to change to get transparency about the fuctioning of a complete system.
1. The algorithm is just a part of the system, and the behaviour of the system is not determined in anything close to any majority part by the algorithm – the data fed to it, and the intransparent patterns learned by it, are. The transparency needs to be about the algorithm but much more about the eventual parameters as learned throughout the training time and the training/tuning after that. [Update before press release: There seems to be an erroneous assumption by some way too deep into EC affairs that the parameters are part of the ‘algorithm’ which is Newspeak at its worst, and counterproductive certainly here, and hence dangerous.]
2. The algorithm can just be printed out … If anyone would need that. One can just as easily run an AI code analyser (how good would that be? They exist already, exponentially increasing their quality, savvyness) over the source- or decompiled code.
3. The eventual parameters … not so much; they’re just there in a live system; unsure how well they are written out into any file or so (should be, for backup purposes – when not if AI systems will get legal personhood eventually (excepting the latter-day hoaxes re that), will a power switch-off be the same as attempted murder, and/or what would the status of a backup AI ‘person’ be ..?).
4. Bias, etc. will be in the parameters. The algorithms, mostly-almost-exclusively will be blank slates. No-one yet knows how to tackle that sufficiently robustly since even if the system is programmed (algorithm..!) to cough up parameters, the cleverer systems will know (?) how to produce innocent-looking parameters instead of the possibly culpable actual ones. Leads into this trickery by AI systems, have been demonstrated to develop (unintentionally) in actual tests.
5. How to trick AI pattern recognition systems … the newest of class breaks have just been demonstrated in practice – their theoretical viability had been proven long before – e.g., in this here piece as pointed out only yesterday [qua release; scheduled last week ;-]. Class break = systemically unrepairable … [ ? | ! ].

Let’s hope the EC could get irrelevant just that little less quickly by providing it with sound advice. Not the bumbling litlle boys’ and girls’ type of happythepreppy too-dim-wits. [Pejorative, yes, but not degrading: should, maybe not could, have known better ..!]

Oh, and:
[Already at a slight distance, it gets hazy what goes on there; from the Cathédrale]