Tag: poignant

Generate some positivity, please

Something I believe(d) in for a long time already. Being, that I don’t belong. Nor do you, or anyone, to some dreamt-up category of whatever dimension. Didn’t I refer to this (at 0:30) over and over and over again ..?
To change the tack of the posts of late, let’s take a more positive attitude. E.g., by reading Brian Solis’ story here, and elsewhere: There exists no typical generation of any characterisation. Which leaves you free to pursue your own Happiness, in whatever way you’d want — with the caveat of not inroading of the freedom of others, and respecting the Commons in various directions.

Also, contra profiling, filter bubbles, echo chambers, social isolation, shallows, etc. Contra the dark side, who wouldn’t want that ..?
Pro the eternal fact that any average is, except for rare and particular cases, unequal to about all elements over which you took the avg. Even more so when talking multidimensional elements, and hoomans are possibly infinite in that.

So, be Free(d). And:
[Spread that word! Riga]

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]

Emergent logic

Some time ago I posted something(s) on how the audit community could become relevant again, veering away from compliance(-only or -not even a bit by the disclaimers that destroy a rainforest on every occasion) and moving into the world of ‘ethicality audits’ on autonomous decision( system)s.
Now with the insight that until now, the humans in the loop, the big loop with many steps of analysis to be taken, were as a matter of fact complicit in drafting and applying patterns and pattern matching techniques.
Which is no news, but when we see now the automated-logic type of decision making that is no more than a black box, the question is: How can we analyse what happens inside ..? Answer: Use the tools that Big Data analysts use; extend them to cover specific cases / transactions and see how the argumentation flow was.    ..?

Still, there may be progress in this way. E.g., by the ‘decision’ or behaviour of the system, being emergent. So that we don’t focus on the bits (almost literally) of the case at hand but on the meaning of those bits. Because that’s the level that ‘conscious’ reasoning works on, seeking the nous from the lower and material levels, working on the ‘machine’ at the higher level, and then translating it back to the material outcome.
Which is similar to the analysis that is Process Analysis, if done properly.

I’ll expand, later. And:
[Aranjuez to impress; same]

What you said, doesn’t matter anymore

Yet another proof class busted: Voice being (allegedly) so pretty perfectly synthesizable, that it loses its value as proof (of identity). Because beyond reasonable doubt isn’t beyond anymore, and anyone venturing to bring voice-based evidence, will not be able to prove (beyond…) that the sound heard, isn’t tampered with i.e. generated. Under the precept of “whoever posits, proofs”, the mere remark that no madam Judge we honestly did not doctor this evidence, is insufficient and there can be no requirement for positive disproof for dismissal from the defense as that side is not the one doing the positing. What about entrapment, et al.?

So, technological progress brings us closer to chaos. “Things don’t move so fast”-believers must be disbarred for their demonstrated gross incapacity — things have moved fast and will do so, ever faster. Or what ..?

Well, or Privacy. Must the above ‘innovator’ be sanctioned severely for violation of privacy of original-content-sound producers ..? Their (end) product(s) is sold/leased to generate false identity or doctored proof, either for or against the subject at hand, <whatever> party would profit thereof. Like an equipment maker whose products are targeted at burglars, or worse e.g., guns. Wouldn’t these be seriously curfewed, handcuffed ..?

[Edited to add, after drafting this five days ago: Already, Bruce is onto this, too. Thanks. (Not my perspective, but still)]

Oh, or:
[Apparently so secure(d), ‘stormed’ and taken practically overnight (read the story of); Casa Loma, Toronto]

DNA not so Determinant; there goes another piece of Evidence

[ Commemoration of the Dead, today in the Netherlands. Never forgotten. Never forget! ]

In the series of surrealisation of proof, in courts and elsewhere, turning anything into faker news than before – a trend that was under way already for a long time, maybe centuries but now speeding up enormously – after the most recent class of proof (yes don’t complain I’m clear, qua ‘class’!) we have even old (?) evidence classes being overthrown. Like, your DNA.
Somehow, we already knew that. Where the analogue of hash collisions happened IRL, with disastrous consequences for peoples’ lives, and that of their families, et al. Really, imagine yourself in the midst of it all: Ragnarök and the collapse of the foundations of society … I’m not joking any bit.

But now, again. What Evidence classes remain? When each and every class can be planted, fabricated (signatures, pictures; untraceably), coerced (‘rat out your partner or all of your family will be killed before your eyes’), etc., indeed nothing remains. Nothing non-repudiatory…

But flipside; Skynet is here. Like before.

And:
[Either way, you lose; Zuid-As Ams]

Collateral (un)patching; 0+1-day

Is this a new trend? Revealing that there had been a couple of exploitables, backdoors in your s/w when you patch some other ones and then have to roll back because you p.’d off the wrong ones since you accidentally also patched or disabled some hitherto secret ones.
At least, this is what it seems like when reading this; M$ stealthily (apparently not secretly enough) patching some stuff in negative time i.e., before-zero day. When later there’s rumours about this patch(ing, possibly parts of) is retracted.

For this, there appear (again) to be two possible reasons:
a. You flunked the patch and it kills some Important peoples’ system(s);
b. You ‘flunked’ the patch and you did right, but the patch effectively killed some still-not-revealed (in the stash) backdoors that the Important peoples (TLAs) still had some use for and were double-secretly requested to put back in place.

I’m in a Movie Plot mood (come to think of it, for no reason; ed.) and go for the second option. Because reasons (contradictory; ed.). Your 2¢ please.

Oh, and:
[So crowded and you’re still much less than a stone’s throw from a Da Vinci Code (was it?) big secret — I may have the pic elsewhere on my blog…; Barça]

Yesterday, same thing.

This is sort-of the same as yesterday’s post, put into practice, when your AGA now not only remotely slow-cooks but slow-betrays you. Slowly either does not at all or over-burns your carefully prepped meat. So the wretched short-lived lambkin died for nothing.
Would anyone know of any device out there that is duly protected against this sort of thing? Or whether (not or not) this is a generic weakness: Access from the outside, offers access from the outside to anyone, to rattle the door. And some, through persistance or imme force applied, will find the door opens. Your convenience, theirs too. Same, with ‘connected’ toys. Yes they are…

Oh, and:
[May superficially look like an AGA but isn’t, not even a hacked architecture studio’s design, just purposeful – and beautiful – museum design in Toronto]

Customers, users, they aren’t the same

Yet another recent article in an otherwise wise mag tripped over the not even remotely subtle distinction between customers and users, when it comes to bragging rights of social media platforms.
User, users everywhere … But even by the billions they aren’t providing any subscription income… Because they’re just the product. Would mr Musk brag about how many Model S3X cars can run off his new factory’s assembly lines [errr…, yes he may], or would he be happier when there’s some out there that actually pay for the products? [that’s why he may]
At least, here we can still (sic) speak of actual products and clients. Where already clients and (‘all’) users are not the same thing. Buried in the above-linked article is passing reference to skew in ad revenue. Yes indeed. With the end kicker being the achievement of so-and-so-many billions of users again, to bury the fact that ad revenue points at what Facebook is all about: Lift, shift and retention of ad (selling) companies that are the actual users-customer-clients that bring in the dough.

So, wouldn’t it be better business reporting to stratify the users by ad generation ..? Wouldn’t it be better to point out all developments in revenues per ‘active’ user? Wouldn’t it be honest to report how little per user the ultimately advertising company makes in additional renevue by sales of (near-)physical products ..?

I’ll leave you with:
[The Salz’ worth going all the way up there, the ‘user’ down below made to feel on top of it…]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord