Category: Information Risk Management

New car game, new chances

Earlier we wrote about how the self-driving cars till now, weren’t. Were more like ‘world-map programmed in, some (humanity oh dear how irrational) noise added’-navigating cars.

Now, we’ve entered new games, like the Big G possibly taking on Uber through employing self-driving cars – which would make the shrill reality of jobless growth, as predicted for the taxi industry a reality; where do all the taxi drivers go ..? And suddenly, there’s a new entrant on the other front. This one might pear fruit. If, big if, they’ve tackled the hard AI problems XOR they’re on the same lame track. [As said, the essence in this earlier post]
Or it’s just an as yet unheard of thingy for a new round of Connected Car developments. Or…

And then there’s dark horses lurking in the background. Like Tesla (/ Hyperloop?), and others you have no idea about yet.

OK, speculation, speculation, … Just wanted to note that there seems to be movement on the AI front leaking into the Real World. Or not. But there’s things a-brewin’.

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[Cloudy weather, dark picture. Still, let’s pray for progress ? at Colline du Haute]

Coolness 1 – progress 0

Hm, on the face of it, this here is interesting: the director of Europol (no less) saying that TOR and Bitcoin shouldn’t be vilified even if they pose problems for agencies, since they allow cittizzzens to enjoy the freedoms of the Interwebz.

Nevertheless … Claiming that means: ‘may still be needed to trace and convict those colouring outside the boxes’, which would raise suspicion of window dressing. Let’s see how this talk will be walked, shall we ..?

After which dense text you deserve:
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[Typical Zuid-As]

Repudiation, repudiation (not) everywhere

With DARPA’s quest for Active Authentication (as here), what will the future spread of (non-)repudiation look like ..? By means of strength of proof e.g. before courts, when system abusers may claim to accidentally have the same behavioural ICT use patterns as the unknown culprits, or be victims of replay attacks.
I’m unsure about how this will play out, then; whether Innocent Until, or Proof of Innocence, or even Reasonable Suspicion may still exist.

Yeah, I get it – you’ll claim that this is for DoD purposes only. Of course, as it never has, in the past. @SwiftOnSecurity would (need to) be on the alert.

Well, as this kind of innovation (by this agency) usually reaches society in all sorts of very unexpected ways, there’s hope that something in support of the Constitution may in the end come out… for now, I’ll leave you with:
Photo21
[Light on the inside, though without outlook… FLlW at Racine, WI]

IR-L or 0 (BC)

The spectre of BCM has been haunting ‘business’ departments of about any organization for too long. It needs to go away – as spectre, and take its rightful place in ‘Risk’ ‘Management’. The latter, in quotes, since this, this, this, this, and this and this.
Much link, very tire. Hence,
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[Opera! Opera! Cala at Vale]

Which actually brings me to the core message: ‘Governance’ [for the quotes, see the last of the above link series again] fails for a fact (past, current, future) if it doesn’t include risk management, and when that doesn’t take this into account:
Turf wars
[Here, highlighted for InfoSec as that’s in my trade portfolio…]

First, a reference to that RM-in-Gov’ce mumbo jumbo: Here. (In Dutch, by way of crypto-defeating measure vis-à-vis TLAs… (?)) Listing among others (diversity, sustainable enterprise, external auditor role) the need to do more about risk management at ‘governance’ levels. Which might of course be true, and how long overdue after COSO has been issued and has been revised over and over again already.

But then, implementation … No strategic plan survives first contact with the enemy (ref here). And then, on turf are the wars that be, in all organisations. Among the great multitude of front lines, the one between Information Risk (management) the Light brigade [of which the Charge wasn’t stupid! It almost succeeded but because the commander wasn’t a toff so supporting a brilliant move by such an upstart wasn’t fashionable, he was blamed – an important life lesson…], being overall generic CIA with letting A slip too easily on the one hand, and the all too often almost Zero Business Continuity (management) on the other, outs the lack of neutral overlordship over these viceroys by wise (sic) understanding of risk management at the highest organizational levels. As in the picture: It’s all RM in one way or another. And (though the pic has an InfoSec focus) it’s not only about ICT, it’s about People as well. As we have duly dissed the ‘Process’ thinghy as unworthy hot air in a great many previous posts.

Where’s this going …? I don’t know. Just wanted to say that the IR-to-BC border is shifting, as IR becomes such an overwhelming issue that even the drinks at Davos were spoilt over concerns re this (as clearly, here). But still, BC isn’t taken as the integral part of Be Prepared that any business leader, entrepreneur or ‘executive’ (almost as dismal as ‘manager’) should have in daily (…) training schedules. Apart from the Boy Cried Wolf and overly shrill voices now heard, the groundswell is (to be taken! also) serious: IR will drive much of BC, it’s just that, again, sigh, the B will be too brainless to understand the C concerns. Leaving BC separate and unimplemented (fully XOR not!) next to great ICT Continuity.
Or will they, for once, cooperate and cover the vast no-man’s land ..? Hope to hear your success stories.

To study; unconscious compliance, conformity

A quite good analysis here, of this book.

Which throws a wrench in many discussion positions for or against privacy … also in the light of this book. Are we numb mindless drones in larger schemes, or are we individuals whose choices happened to coincide? Through availability of emergent too-selective alternatives or what?

Think about that. And revel at:
000011 (3)
[Cheney interior, original. And B&B ..! Hey don’t complain, ‘t is from an analog one again, circa 1997.]

Disarming the citizens of the US

Ah, yes, prohibiting any discussion of or even link to possibly cracking-enabling information. Already worded in a veiled way, as in:

this would mean taking away the arms that a great many US citizens are equipped with (and prohibiting gun range training), once, against the English (Brits?) now against just any outsider and US citizens themselves? Quite a Second Amendment thing, these days…

As a European, I don’t want to meddle in US domestic affairs. But I tend to the interpretation of constitutions and amendments anywhere, all of them, as principles not absolutes. Absolutes never (sic) work in societal organisation. When quite a number of those concerned [again, I’m not] would gladly see all amendments interpreted to principle not literally except this very dangerous one.

‘nough of that. Now, onto the more recent EU moves towards banning hacker tools … (and the UK push for banning encryption tools, even). I just have questions:

  • What about free speech? Seems to be an issue for discussion as democracies need more absolute protection of that. Amazon wouldn’t be allowed to sell hacker books in selected countries. Banning books, anyone?
  • How many % of crackers would live in the applicable jurisdictions, to be under the prohibition provisions, and how many are outside those jurisdictions ..? What would happen if one would exclude the former from being armed and ready but giving the latter a, most probably, more vulnerable target?
  • The honest researchers in those countries would be jobless; never a good incentive to stay in the right side. The honest researchers elsewhere would have a bonanza as all bugfix trade must move to the outside. Either that XOR through a form of licensing one creates a humungous random hence erratic but totalitarian public/private cartel. In the Home of the Free, in the pursuit of happiness.
  • If through this, the balance is lost, will the US and/or EU start to isolate itself (its ‘Internet’ (quod non as per this)) from the rest of the world ..? If so, how any trillions of $/€ will be lost to others, whereas any related industry (that will be the future as the mature-industry-little-growth primary, secondary and tertiary industries will be what’s left for the EU/US but serious growth will be in the new industries?) will not come off the ground, hindering greatly any recovery from the intermediate term (slump) before booming, à la this.
  • Will stego boom? The Hiding in Plain Sight can bring an additional benefit of plausible deniability (with some tweaking).

Seems like the above POTUS quote might indicate that he’s not planning any censoring of the spread of direct or indirect vulnerability information but on the contrary would be stepping up efforts to bring the US back on top of the game. E.g., by not focusing solely on physical terrorists but also on outside-in and from-within (sic) cyber attacks. Or was the quote an apology for the NSA being in NK even before the (known to them!) Sony hack ..?

The picture is still murky. Too murky to take sides already, for my take. I’ll leave you with:

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[Bergen aan Zee, Autumn dominos]

‘Algorithm’ or ‘Intelligence’ or Who Cares?

This appeared:


But hey, an algorithm … exists on paper, in the head of programmers, just anywhere. But is an object, however ephemeral, not an actor. What’s probably meant, is that an actual computer, equipped with software that implements the algorithm, and with tons of data, and with electricity, will generate output that sufficiently resembles ‘human’ output. Any news there ..?

hFA00C326
[Your ‘brain’..?]

Half an argument for mainframes

This here article is somewhat interesting… Explanatory, but also lacking some. E.g., some strengths are given, but not how they would be competitive advantages over a mega-dc of blades or so, as the really big players do.
Oh well. Who cares ..?

For now:
Old camera
[Plain vanilla Vienna damn auto’rekt]

Start the Told You So now you still can (?)

Against the trend to dismiss any dystopian view as unduly unoptimistic and hence invalid, that I so dislike..: This here piece by In the Knows.

The Told You So Boys Cried Wolf (lopping two memes into one, in this case appropriately) may better have started now, since they will not be heard (fact about the (near) future) and may not get another opportunity when all the others, the drones, have been subdued by the 0,1%, the AI singularity beast. To put it mildly ;-|

Or, … maybe this time around, some exponential counter force may have come off the ground – not yet into full above-the-radar-floor visibility but still… If ever in history there was a chance to get it (technology) right, it would be now, now that more people are in the middle class (that always takes the beating, apart from the continuous light flogging the underclasses have always got and will always get) and have just the right minimum levels of insight and might care for their future. Unprecedented as an opportunity but hardly assured it’s seized…

Anyway…, this:
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[Strasbourg, astronomical clock – yes, science within a cathedral]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord