tag > InfoSec
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Another layer of opacity: how spies use AI and why we should talk about it
"Instead of reducing complexity for intelligence agencies, AI creates new data problems and will add another layer of opacity to already secretive organisations. At the same time, the general hype around AI presents a unique opportunity to learn about and weigh in on intelligence practice in real time. "
Augmentation as Artifice: A Palantir Look at AI
"AI is overrated. The role of machines is not to replace but facilitate human reasoning. Augmented intelligence (AuI) can help intelligence agencies navigate the data deluge by enabling human analysts to make data-driven decisions in a more transparent and accountable way."
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On DARPA’s research into human enhancement (The Atlantic)
The mission: “to ‘free the mind from the limitations of even healthy bodies.’ What the agency learns from healing makes way for enhancement. The mission is to make human beings something other than what we are, with powers beyond the ones we’re born with and beyond the ones we can organically attain.” “How can I liberate mankind from the limitations of the body?” one researcher asked. One aspiration: "the ability, via computer, to transfer knowledge and thoughts from one person’s mind to another’s."
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Celine's Laws - by Hagbard Celine (via)
1. National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity.
2. Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation. (related, via)
3. An honest politician is a national calamity.
Related, from an interview with Robert Anton Wilson:
"Communication is possible only between equals. That’s the SNAFU Principle. I also call it Wilson’s Law. I hope that eventually it will get incorporated into sociology books. I really believe it. This came to me when I was working for Playboy, and realized that everything that was wrong with Playboy was due to the hierarchy there. I’d like to say that I predicted the decline and fall of the Hefner Empire, but I didn’t. I could see that communication was all screwed up because of the hierarchy, and then I thought of every other corporation I ever worked for, and armies and governments, and I realized that this is the situation in the authoritarian family, too. This is what women’s liberation is all about. Another big influence on the SNAFU Principle was Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses. There’s a great sentence in there that goes roughly, „To the sheriff, Lucas was just another nigger and both the sheriff and Lucas knew it; but only one of them knew that to Lucas the sheriff was a redneck without any reason for pride in his forbears nor hope for it in his descendents.“ And that’s what hierarchy does: it creates a situation where the person on the top doesn’t know what the person on the bottom thinks."
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Illustration of Amazon's cloud operations - from an Interview with Stephen E Arnold of DarkCyber by Robert David Steele (13min video). #Comment: As usual, too little resolution on the most interesting question: What is the philosophy and agenda, once all data is collected?
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Sentient World Simulation - Synthetic Environment for Analysis and Simulations (SEAS) - "a synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information".
The DoD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual “nodes” to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR. Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a “synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information”, according to a concept paper for the project.
“SWS provides an environment for testing Psychological Operations (PSYOP),” the paper reads, so that military leaders can “develop and test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners.” SWS also replicates financial institutions, utilities, media outlets, and street corner shops. By applying theories of economics and human psychology, its developers believe they can predict how individuals and mobs will respond to various stressors.
Links:
- Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale. Sim Strife - By Mark Baard (2007, theregister)
- Sentient World Simulation (SWS): A Continuously Running Model of the Real World. A Concept Paper for Comments - Government POC - by Tony Cerri (JFCOM J9)
- Lessons from a Large-Scale Deployment of SEAS in Afghanistan - by Rashmi Chaturvedi, President Simulex Inc
- Alok R. Chaturvedi - Professor of Information Systems and the founder and the Director of SEAS Laboratory
- Executing the modeling and simulation strategy making simulation systems of systems a reality (2007) - by James W. Hollenbach (The Defense Modeling and Simulation Office) and William L. Alexander (SAIC)
- It is Alive – Sentient World Simulation: A Continuously Running Model of the Real World
- Synthetic psychological environment (wikipedia)
- Cyber Node Report - by Frank Catanzaro, Chair Cyber Futures at WFUNA Millennium Project (2007)
- Predictive policing (wikipedia)
- Considering All the Strategic Options - Whilst ignoring alternatives and disclaiming cognitive protectionism - Produced on the occasion of the NATO Summit (Strasbourg, April 2009)
- "Path Leading To Failure" - video interview with William Binney & Dr. Robert Duncan (formerly NSA)
- Former Defense Secratary Donald Rumself (83) Marches Into New Territory: Videogames (2016)
- Comprehensive Analysis of Synthetic Monitoring Market 2019 | Industry Overview
- Google's "Selfish ledger"
A clip from "Eagle Eye" (2008)
A clip from "Colossus - The Forbin Project" (1970)
#Military #VR #Bots #BCI #InfoSec #Economics #Politics #Cryptocracy
- Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale. Sim Strife - By Mark Baard (2007, theregister)
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From Fake news to Junk News. The data politics of online virality - by Tommaso Venturini.
Part of the book "Data Politics: Worlds, Subjects, Rights" - by Didier Bigo (site) et.al (2019)
Didier Bigo on Security, Surveillance and Democracy
Fog of Information - by tekgnostics
“In this day and age... we are faced with a Fog of Information that is as distracting and detrimental as the fog of war.” - from “Bread & Circuses”
"Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a system exceeds its processing capacity. Decision-makers have fairly limited cognitive processing capacity. Consequently, when information overload occurs, it is likely that a reduction in decision quality will occur."
"It's not a matter what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true" - Henry Kissinger
#Politics #SE #InfoSec #Bots #Culture #KM #Internet #Military #RTM
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"Simply saying that more health research is needed on 5G —the latest generation of cell phone technology— can be hazardous to your reputation."
Related: A Fact-Free Hit on a 5G Critic
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Big Brother is watching: Chinese city with 2.6m cameras is world's most heavily surveilled (guardian)
Chongqing has 1 camera per 6 residents, but “Singapore has plans to install 100,000 facial-recognition cameras on lampposts, Chicago police have asked for 30,000 more, and Moscow intends to have 174,000 by the end of this year.”
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Google’s Secret ‘Project Nightingale’ Gathers Personal Health Data on Millions of Americans: https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-s-secret-project-nightingale-gathers-personal-health-data-on-millions-of-americans-11573496790 Medical Data: A Google Focus for More Than a Decade: http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2019/11/12/medical-data-a-google-focus-for-more-than-a-decade/
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Barack Panther [Obama/Black Panther deep fake]
Complete with speech synthesis to deepfake his voice too. #Generative #ML #InfoSec -
Attorney General Bill Barr Will Ask Zuckerberg To Halt Plans For End-To-End Encryption Across Facebook's Apps: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/bill-barr-facebook-letter-halt-encryption
EU Court: Facebook Can Be Forced To Remove Content Worldwide: https://www.apnews.com/4182cda66edd4638b4feea68a5136934
France Set to Roll Out Nationwide Facial Recognition ID Program: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-03/french-liberte-tested-by-nationwide-facial-recognition-id-plan
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U.S. Government Plans to Collect DNA From Detained Immigrant: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/us/dna-testing-immigrants.html #Military #SE #InfoSec #Biology
“That kind of mass collection alters the purpose of DNA collection from one of criminal investigation basically to population surveillance, which is basically contrary to our basic notions of a free, trusting, autonomous society,” said Vera Eidelman, a staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.
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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes biology is the next frontier in computing: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/02/eric-schmidt-says-hes-eyeing-biology-for-the-next-computing-frontier.html #Biology #Military #InfoSec #SE
Key Points
- Former CEO Eric Schmidt said biology is in a “golden period,” making it perfect for tech.
- Schmidt said data from human eyes will generate new algorithms.
- He also said computing and biology need each other now more than ever.
Schmidt said he’d like to marry the two worlds as quickly as possible. At one point, he asked the crowd to “build bacteria that absorbs CO2,” adding “We need it at scale and we need it in the next 10 to 15 years.”
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Social media manipulation as a political tool is spreading: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/09/30/social-media-manipulation-as-a-political-tool-is-spreading/ #SE #InfoSec
"The use of computational propaganda to shape public attitudes via social media has become mainstream, extending far beyond the actions of a few bad actors. In an information environment characterized by high volumes of information and limited levels of user attention and trust, the tools and techniques of computational propaganda are becoming a common – and arguably essential – part of digital campaigning and public diplomacy."
Some key findings from the report:
- 87% of countries use human-controlled accounts
- 80% of countries use bot accounts
- 11% of countries use cyborg accounts
- 7% of countries use hacked/stolen accounts
- 71% of these accounts spread pro-government or pro-party propaganda
- 89% attack the opposition or mount smear campaigns
- 34% spread polarizing messages designed to drive divisions within society
- 75% of countries used disinformation and media manipulation to mislead users
- 68% of countries use state-sponsored trolling to target political dissidents, the opposition or journalists
- 73% amplify messages and content by flooding hashtags
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Twitter executive for Middle East is British Army 'psyops' soldier: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/twitter-executive-also-part-time-officer-uk-army-psychological-warfare-unit #Politics #SE #InfoSec #Military
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China unveils 500 megapixel camera that can identify every face in a crowd of tens of thosands: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/26/china-unveils-500-megapixel-camera-can-identify-every-face-crowd/ #InfoSec
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Patent-Bot: "Automating the patent troll... The program creates thousands of new patent summaries per second.": http://muse.jhu.edu/article/728406
