Tag: disruption

Having fun with voice synth

In particular, having fun the wrong way.
Remember, we wrote about how voice synth improvements, lately, will destroy non-repudiation? There’s another twist. Not only as noted, contra voice authentication for mere authentication (banks, of all, would they really have been in the lead, here, without back-up-double auth?), but in particular now that your voice has also become much more important again [after voice had dwindled in use for any sorts of comms, giving way to socmed typed even when with pixels posts of ephemeral or persistent kinds; who actually calls anyone anymore ..?], we see all sorts of Problems surfacing.

Like, mail order fraud. When hardly anyone still goes on a shopping spree through dozens of stores before buying something in store but rather orders online, of course Alexa / Home/Assistant / Siri / Echo / Cortana are all the rage. For a while; for a short while as people will find out that there was something more to shopping than getting something — but recognising the equilibrium that’ll turn out, may be in favour of on-line business, with physical delivery either at home, or at the mall.
The big ‘breakthrough’ currently being of course some half-way threshold / innovation speed bump overcome, with the home assistant gadgets that were intended to be much more butler first, (even-more-) mall destructor second. But that second … How about some fun and pranking, by catuyrig just some voice snippets from your target, even when just in line behind ’em at Wallmart, and then synthesizing just about any text? When a break-in on the backside of your home assistant (very doable; the intelligence is too complex and voluminous to sit in the front-end device anyway [Is it …!? Haven’t seen anything on this!] so at least there’s some half-way intelligent link at the back) may be feasible per principle but doing a MiM on the comms to some back-end server would be much more easy even, and much easier to obfuscate (certainly qua location, attribution), a ‘re’play of just any message is feasible.

Like, a ‘re’play of ordering substances that would still be suspicious even when for ‘medicinal purposes’. Or only embarassing, like ordering tools from the sort of fun-tools shop you wouldn’t want to see your parents order from. Of course, the joke is at delivery time [be that couriers, DEA/cops, or just non-plain packages] — oh wait we could just have the goods delivered to / picked up at, any address of our liking and have the felons/embarressed only feel that part plus non-repudiability.

This may be a C-rated-movie plot scenario, hence it will happen somewhere, a couple of times at least. Or become an epidemic. And:
[No mall, but a fun place to shop anyway; Gran Vía Madrid]

No surprises here; qua attribution

Is anyone surprised that apparently, “there’s traces of North-Korean involvement” in the WannaCry hiccup ..?
As yesterday’s post (below) already noted; no-one cares about WannaCry1.0 anymore hence ‘hiccup’. Has 2.0 come ’round already?
But how much repudiation by the North-Koreans would reach our general news …? So, how easy it is to blame the NKs for anything that goes wrong ..? Like,

Whereas, … Russia did claim it was also ‘hit’ by WC1.0 [oh the abbrev], but no damage ensued because they were able to stop it at the front door. Right. By lack of actual true snippets from 1600 Penn Ave, we now consider anything that comes out of Russia to be tru-er than what comes from DC, just like that ..? Because that would indeed leave ‘North Korea’ the only reasonably believable/unsurprising culprit.
On the other hand, the embedded tweet indicates Russia actually stole something. Until now, wasn’t it that the exploitable was leaked? Quite different … What is Russia’s involvement now, that those that have info of leakage only, don’t have intel on ..?

[Edited pre-press to add: there… ]

Oh, I’ll just leave it for you to ponder. And weep. And:

[Yes from that ridge, Gettysburg…]

Notnews

Remember it’s a two weeks flashback already
Monday morning’s watercooler discussion: Did you hear about this WannaCry attacks all around the world? The sky is falling! And what a hypecycle the ‘solutions’ vendors piled onto it immediately and oh hey look cat pics how cute oh now it’s Friday again how time flies CU on Monday for more cat pics.

So true it’s sobering; appropriately. And:
[Will never learn. NY]

GDPR is just a legal attempt at Y2k

Suddenly I realised, as one who profited handsomely (not in money but in perks’ way), that the whole GDPR compliance thingy is becoming quite similar, all too similar, to the hype that was called The Millennium Problem … too bad we now know how that ended, otherwise an illustrative movie could be made of the latter – now only (?) a documentary review is worthwhile, as history writing. Too bad it isn’t out in the open that despite all efforts then made, actually quite a lot of companies ended up having to hire temps to do all sorts of manual corrections in their administrations due to e.g., spreadsheets [the very things the toughest, most important business decisions hinged, and still hinge on!] going heywire over date fields.

To come back to the Issue … Are you not hit by that, almost sudden, avalanche of GDPR compliance warnings lately, like, the past couple of weeks ..? Is it not a warning that you need to do loads of things now, starting with hiring consultants (call to action; they’re Sales messages of course) this time not of the tech kind – engineers that see a problem, craft a solution and we’re done –, but of the legal kind – profiting only from prolongation of your insecurity.

And ah, there’s the snag! Multifaceted it is;

  • One: With some deadline suitably near to instill fear of lurking deadlines but suitably far to be able to still write you up with many, many ticks (per 6 or 3 minutes ..!?) at ridiculous rates, will be written;
  • Two: Unlike the patching that was the core solution (after Inventory – you did keep that in appropriate order in your wide-scope CMDB ever after 31/12/00, right ..? Even with some global outpost in the corner writing that down as 12/31/00. What stupid value loss if you didn’t! We’re only 17 years on! Did you really think legacy problems would have gone away by now …!?), we now see there is no solution but just getting compliant with all sorts of stupidly unprofitable, inefficient (and might we add, ineffective! yes if you are realistic, that’s what it is) good-for-nothing overhead;
  • Three: The good-for-nothing part — maybe not fully nothing, but oh so limitedly good for anything that you should’ve done already long ago not only for any ‘privacy’ compliance but for effective and efficient IT, -security included.

Following on this Lotus list, indeed there’s a lot of work to be done to become compliant … on the Legal side. On the IT side maybe also, but what needs to be done there, is (re)implementation of sound practices that should have been common daily practice anyway, and when implemented as such, ready; done.

The legal side on the other hand, sees all sorts of enduring challenges, like many cultural changes; no leaning back and await questions for advice to be answered out of hand with “It depends…” / “Come with a proposed solution and I’ll tell you whether it may or may not be permissible”, but for once being actively engaged and delivering definitive answers, and designing, implementing, and carrying out your (Legal) selves reams of procedural stuff. Acting on assessments, acting in communications, acting in control(s), etc.

You get it — the GDPR brings many problems for many organisations, the biggest of the problems being how to manage back the (Legal) consultancy fees… Remember, when data leakage isn’t preventable (as some dunces might still believe, many on the Legal side of GDPR compliance among them – hey they even think pseudonymisation amounts to anything), bad things are bound to happen. When (not if) not already via the avalanche of information requests …

I rest my case now, for you to have time to process the above, get it, and leave you with:

Your GDPR compliance looks much, much worse (this is actually quite good!); Toronto]

One 000

Yes, celebrations … The one-thousandestest post on this blog… [Excluding the two cross-posts by others…]

Do I regret any of them ..? Nope. [Rounded down]
Do I regret having been early with signalling many developments ..? Nope. At worst, sometimes I may have been too early, with the post(s) having slid from memory (ah, shallows you are) when finally the world came ’round to see the point as pointed out by some random stranger top-notch journalist or guru.
Non, je ne regrette rien.

OK, yes, I’ll keep on truckin’ for a while.
On everything from metaphilosophical discussions down to bitwise details on phenomena of Information, Society, IoT, Privacy, Information Security (#ditchcyber) Oxford, and gadgetry. Plus:
[The allusion to ‘reflection’ (of the old in the new etc.) is purely accidental, of course; London a decade ago]

GoTo Statement Considered Political

Bear with me; this is a mindstretcher.

Desperately few (still alive) have ever really fully read The Original (no, not that one).
And now I realise It (not it) was, and is, very valid today, as the opposite – at a meta(?)physical, quasi(?)(in)formal-logic level of abstraction – of what latter-day politicking looks like, in so many places around the world. Dangerous, that is, the latter.

Where the danger of GoTo is in its contextless jumping, ripping away the checks and balances that govern it, keep the oversight. In BASIC and others (JMP anyone?), at least there’s a form of kernel ‘hyperviser’/BIOS sort-a function, as underpinning foundation or supervisor to fall back to in last resort. [Yeah, I know one could program to wreck that but that’s not the point, and often disallowed by technical cast-in-concrete barriers.]
Where the danger of presidentiality-, morality- and common decency-less lies and alternative fact mumbo jumbo, is in its destruction of the checks and balances that govern that, keep the oversight. In reality, there’s no over/underpinning control mechanisms. They get destroyed.

’nuff said. And:
[Looks so real it’s ridiculous! But Fake!; Barça]

Decision time for informational priv

When discussing Privacy, a lot of attention goes to informational privacy, easily tautologised with person-possibly-indentifying data.
If that reads mixed-up, it’s because it is.
But that’s for another session series. Of series.

What today’s post title is about, is the distinction between the two sides of the house; informational privacy (which is about information about you, or which you generate) versus decisional privacy (commonly defined in terms of your right to freely decide over your body’s integrity). As you read that, clearly the latter needs an update; a heck of a long KBxyzuvw article attached.
Because both the

  • Outright choice limitation through covert or overt profiling and covert or overt automated decision making, sometimes limiting your choice to none when you get rejected (from the ability to even decide) for something, or get no service proposition at all, a.k.a. the Hobson’s choice of socmed,
  • Covert choice limitation through filter bubbles – which would more accurately be called filter fish-trap,

can result from a lack of informational privacy. But both aren’t well covered in the definition of decisional priv whereas that infamous thing with The Freedom of the Pursuit of Happiness or whatsitcalled I don’t care you get it, Freedom, should be guaranteed.
So tightly coupled with all sorts of metaphysics, ontology, and topology of Privacy. Like, the feeling and understanding y’all have when you hear that word. It’s not only ‘bugger off nothing of your interest here’ privacy but also ‘get off my back‘ privacy; no weighing down.

Oh well. This being among my interests but not really my training, so I’ll go read up the latest qua this all. Pointers appreciated. And:
[For no reason whatsoever, totally unconnected; Riga Jugendstil]

Note to self: GDPR scrum with or without the r

Just to remind myself, and you for your contributions, that it’s seriously time to write up a post on Agile development methods [OK, okay, I mean Scrum, as the majority side of the house]; how one is supposed to integrate GDPR requirements into that.
Like, we’re approaching the stage where the Waterfall model      of security implementation, will be Done for most organisations. Not Well Done, rather Rare or Pittsburg Rare, at your firm [not Firm …]. But then, we’ll have to make the wholesale change to Maintenance, short-term and long-term. And meanwhile, waterfall has been ditched for a long time already in core development work, hence we have a backlog (huh; the real kind) qua security integration (sic; the bolt-on kind doesn’t work anyway) into all these Agile Development methods of which word has it everyone and their m/br-other seems to make use these latter days.

But then, the world has managed to slip security into that. Which is praiseworthy, and needs more Spread The Word.

And then, there’s the GDPR. May we suggest to include it in ‘security’ as requirements flow into the agile development processes ..?
As said, I’ll expand on this l8r.
If only later, since we need to find a way to keep the DPOs out of this; the vast majority (sic) of them, with all due [which hence may be severely limited] respect, will not understand to a profound level they’ll try to derail your development even without the most basic capability to self-assess they do it, in ways that are excruciatingly hard to pinpoint, lay your finger on.

But as written, that’s for another time. In the meantime, I’d love to see your contributions (if/when serious) overflowing my mailbox… Plus:
[Lawyers lurking next door…; Zuid-As Ams]

Music to AI’s ears

Will AI eventually appreciate music ..?

Not just appreciate in a sense of experiencing the quality of it — the latter having ‘technical’ perfection as its kindergarten basement’s starting level only; where the imperfections are cherishable as huge improvements, yes indeed [Perfection Is Boring!] … but moreover, music appreciation having a major element of recognition, subconsciously mostly, of memories of times almost-im-memorial.

Of course, the kindergarten perfection gauging, AI will be able to do easily. Will, or does; simple near-algorithmic A”I” can do that today.

Appreciating imperfections, the same, with a slight randomiser (-recogniser) thrown in the algo mix.

But the recollection part, even at a conscious level requires memories to be there, and as far as AI goes (today) even ASI will have different memory structures since the whole facts learning processes are different. And don’t mention the subconscious side.

Yes, ASI can have a subconscious, of which we aren’t aware of even able to be aware [Note to self: to cover in audit philosophy development]. But when we don’t hear of this, was there a tree that fell in the forest?

I’m off some tangent direction.

What I started out to discuss is: At what point does music appreciation through the old(est) memories recall, become an element of ‘intelligence’ ..?

With the accompanying question, on my priority list when discussing AxI: Is it, for humans ..?

And a bonus question: Do you really think that AI would prefer, or learn earlier about the excellence, of Kraftwerk or Springsteen? Alas, your first response was wrong; Kraftwerk’s the kind of subtle intelligent hint-laden apparently-simple stuff that is very complex and also deeply human — which you perceive only when listening carefully over and over again till you get the richness and all the emotions (there they are!) and yearning for the days gone by when the world was a better place. Springsteen, raw and Original-Forceful on the surface — but quickly showing a (rational-level) algorithmics play with not as much depth; even the variations and off-prefection bits are well thought-out, leaving you with much less relatable memories if at all.

Your thoughts are appreciated. And:
[Appropriately seemingly transparent but completely opaque; some EU parliament (?), Strassbourg]

Nutty cryptofails

Considering the vengeance with which cryptobackdoors, or other forms of regulation into tautological-fail limitations, are pursued over and over again (case in point: The soon luckily carved out surrender (to Monay) monkeys [case in point: anyone who has seriously tried an invasion, succeeded handsomely]), it may be worthwhile to re-consider what the current situation is. As depicted in the following:

In which D is what governments et al can’t stand. Yes, it’s that big; pushing all other categories into corners.
Where C is also small, and probably shrinking fast. And B is known; maybe not empty but through its character and the knowledge of it as cracked-all-around part, hardly used if ever, by n00bs only.
And A is what governments want for themselves, but know they can’t have or it will quickly move to B — probably without governments’ knowing of this shift…

And all, vulnerable to the XKCD ‘hack’:

Against which no backdoor-for-governments-only policy will help.
I’ll rest.

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord